America as the New Canaan: The struggle of Seventeenth-Century...

Riek Broekaert 2nd Licentiate Linguistics & Literature: Germanic Languages

Dissertation for obtaining the degree of Licentiate in Linguistics & Literature:

Germanic Languages

America as the New Canaan:

The struggle of Seventeenth-Century American

Puritans for adopting the Divine Covenant

Promotor: Prof. Dr. Kristiaan Versluys English department University of Ghent

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Academic Year 2006 – 2007 University of Ghent May, 21st 2007

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First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Kristiaan Versluys for his relentless

assistance and guidance. Throughout the writing of this paper he has been a most helpful and

much appreciated source of knowledge and constructive criticism.

I am also indebted to Prof. Dr. Danny Praet, of the Department of Philosophy and Moral

Sciences within the University of Ghent, for introducing me to some quintessential ideas and

doctrines in Christian theology.

The librarians of the English Department, of numerous libraries within the faculty of Arts and

Philosophy of the University of Ghent and of the Royal Library Albert I in Brussels (Centre

for American Studies) have been most kind and helpful.

Lastly, I would also like to thank my family and friends for their tireless support throughout

these last two years.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 0. Introduction: Framework and goals of the paper………………………………………..8

1. The Fall of Man: England as the countertype of mankind’s deterioration after

Original Sin………………………………...………………………………………………...10

1.1. The Lord’s Covenant with Adam and Eve……………………………………….10

1.2. Original Sin and the deterioration of mankind…………………………………...12

1.3. “So glory is departed from England” : the deterioration of England…………….14

1.3.1. Thomas Hooker: The Danger of Desertion………………………...…..15

1.3.2. England under Charles I and Archbishop Laud………………………..16

1.3.3. Hooker’s expectation of England’s destruction…………………….….18

1.3.4. The Fall of the English Man according to John Winthrop……………..19

1.3.5. William Hooke and the Civil Wars…………………………………….21

2. The Puritans’ departure from England as the escape from destruction……………...26

2.1. Noah, The Flood and the Redemption of Mankind………………………………26

2.2. “God begins to ship away his Noahs”……………………………………………28

2.3. The Puritans’ theory of a cyclical history………………………………………..31

3. The Puritans’ migration as the countertype of the Exodus……………………………33

3.1. The Exodus from the Jews out of Egypt…………………………………………33

3.2. Parallels between the Exodus and the Puritans’ migration from England……….34

4. The National Covenant………………………………………………………….………..39

4.1. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob………………………………………………………..39

4.2. The promise of Canaan………………………………………………………..…42

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5. New England as the New Canaan………………………………………………………..45

5.1. The Puritans’ claim on the National Covenant…………………………………..45

5.2. “Wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill”: the Puritans’ errand in the wilderness…..48

5.3. Protest against exceptionalism…………………………………………………..51

5.3.1. Roger Williams and Robert Cushman………………………………….51

5.3.2. William Bradford and Edward Johnson……………………………...…52

5.4. Murmurs in the desert: Peter Bulkeley’s The Gospel Covenant…………………54

5.5. The spiritual fulfilment of New Canaan………………………………………….57

6. “In stead of holiness Carnality”: sin in New England…………………………………..59

6.1. The flexibility of the Puritan doctrine……………………………………………59

6.2. The era of corruption……………………………………………………………..62

6.3.Adapting the doctrine: mitigation for the New England sinners………………….64

6.4. “If we be not sleeping, yet are we not slumbering?”……………………………..67

6.5. The second-generation backsliders………………………………………………68

7. Jeremiah and the Covenant of Grace…………………………………………………...70

7.1. The glorious kingdoms of David and Solomon………………………….………70

7.2. The Babylonian Exile……………………………………………………………71

7.3. The Book of Jeremiah………………………………………………….………...72

7.3.1. The Babylonian Exile as divine corrective punishment………………..73

7.3.2. Post-exhilic salvation…………………………………………...………75

7.3.2.1. Turn, O backsliding children : a new Covenant for the Jews…..75

7.3.2.2. Some general tendencies in Christian theology………………..76

7.4. The Covenant of Grace…………………………………………………………..78

7.4.1. The Covenant of Grace as the Puritan answer to Arminianism and

Antinomianism………………………………………………………...78

7.4.2. Cast out, yet blessed: the essential paradox in the Book of Jeremiah…79

7.5. The Halfway Covenant………………………………………………………...…82

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8. Puritans and Indians……………………………………………………………………...84

8.1. An inhabited wilderness……………………………………………………...…..84

8.2. The principle of vacuum domicilium…………………………………………….85

8.3. Three theories about the Indians’ origins……………………………………...…89

8.3.1. Canaanites……………………………………..………………………..89

8.3.2. The Lost Tribe of Israel………………………………………………...90

8.3.3. The Antichrist……………………………………..……………………92

9. Conclusion: the Puritan adoption of the National Covenant and the Covenant of

Grace presented logically……………………………………………………………...……96

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………...…………………………………………………..…102

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0. Introduction: framework and goals of the paper

In the early seventeenth century the Anglican Church had gone through some

significant changes. Puritan congregations were convinced that the Protestant Church under

Archbishop Laud was corrupting gravely. The Puritans could no longer identify with the

creed of the Anglican Church and sought to purify it. A small band of Puritans fled England

to seek fortune elsewhere. They first migrated to Leyden in the Low Countries, after which

they departed for the new world, America. They eventually settled in New England.

The New England Puritans sought eagerly to give eschatological meaning to their

migration. They were convinced that they were acting on behalf of God. According to the

Puritan preachers, it was the Lord who led them overseas to New England, where he would

mould the settlers into a new nation of saints. They constructed a doctrine that professed and

defended a single axiom: the Puritans were God’s chosen people. This axiom came to be the

fundament of the so-called American exceptionalism. In an attempt to justify and argue their

self-proclaimed exceptionalism, the Puritans mirrored themselves with that other chosen

people: the Jews.

The story of the Jews and of Israel, as portrayed mainly in the Books of Genesis,

Exodus, Numbers and Jeremiah, is the story of the Lord leading his flock towards salvation.

The Old Testament1

1 The Old Testament indeed is just a consecutive chain of different covenants. This becomes all the more clear when we unfold the history behind the name ‘testament’. The Old Testament is a Christian adoption of a series of Books from Judaism. That series of Books conveyed the story of different covenants between the Lord and the Jewish people. The Hebrew word ‘berit’ means covenant. When the Books were adopted by the Greeks, the so-called Septuagint, ‘berit’ was translated into ‘diathèkè’. The Greek ‘diathèkè’ not only signifies a covenant, by the Hebrew definition, but also a covenant in a juridical sense. When Christianity, or Judaism, reached Rome, the Septuagint needed to be translated into Latin. In the translation, only the juridical connotation that was added by the Greek ‘diathèkè’ survived. The Hebrew ‘berit’ ultimately became ‘Vetus Testament’, or the Old Testament. (Praet 2005 : 95).

consists of a series of covenants, contracts between God and an

individual or a people. The first of those covenants was between God and mankind, through

Adam and Eve. That covenant was breached, after which God destroyed nearly the whole of

mankind. Noah managed to find grace in the eyes of the Lord, however. He was saved from

destruction, viz. the Flood, and the Lord embarked on a new covenant with Noah. That

covenant was renewed to Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people. Generations after

Abraham, the National Covenant was made: the Lord promised Moses the inheritance of

Canaan, in which he would establish a glorious kingdom for the Jews. Salvation was thus

materially and temporarily defined by the National Covenant. After the kingdoms of David

and Solomon, the Jewish nation fell victim to sin and the Lord punished the backsliders by

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sending them into Babylonian Exile. But the Lord did never forsake his chosen people. He

embarked on a new, spiritual covenant with a small band of saints, the so-called Covenant of

Grace. Thus, despite the many breaches and disobedience of the covenanted, God remains

faithful to his people and leads them to salvation.

The goal of this paper is to prove that the New England Puritans adopted – and

adapted – Israel’s pathway of covenants leading to the ultimate salvation. The Puritans

designed a doctrine, a typology that allowed to see themselves as the seventeenth century

countertype of the Jewish people. We will elucidate the ways in which the Puritans managed

to establish that typology. We will lay bare the mechanisms that the Puritans employed not

only to claim the covenant, but more importantly, to keep the covenant. We will conclude that

this is a process that involves many adaptations of the Puritan doctrine or even the

abandonment of some original ideas, as the Puritans needed to transfer the concept of the

Jewish Covenants to their own predicament and their own needs.

In the first chapter we will discuss the very first covenant between the Lord and Adam

and Eve and how it backfired. We will establish that the Puritans were convinced that

England was facing destruction, a seventeenth countertype of the Flood. The Puritan doctrine

continues to copy the story conveyed in the Book of Genesis. The Puritans compared their

migration to New England with Noah’s survival of the Flood (chapter 2).

From chapter 3 onwards, the Puritan doctrine is shown in its exploration of the typology of

the Puritans as the Jews. In chapter 3, we will prove that the Puritans compared their

migration with the Exodus out of Egypt. Chapter 4 discusses the actual National Covenant of

the Jews in all its components. In the fifth chapter, we will then fully examine the Puritans’

adaptation of the National Covenant and how New England was the New Canaan to the

Puritans.

The paper then goes on to elaborate the breach of the National Covenant (chapter 6)

and how the Puritan doctrine dealt with that breach. The doctrine was adapted and the Puritan

preachers found an escape route in the work of Jeremiah. The National Covenant was

abandoned and a new covenant was made to fit into the Puritan doctrine: the Covenant of

Grace (chapter 7). Chapter 8 briefly discusses how the Indians could be fitted into the Puritan

doctrine.

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1. The Fall of Man: England as the countertype of mankind’s deterioration

after Original Sin

1.1. The Lord’s Covenant with Adam and Eve

The eschatologic story of mankind, spun out in the Old Testament and the New

Testament, consists of a series of successive covenants between God and mankind and God

and the Jewish people. These covenants represent the tools for salvation for mankind, which

is naturally prone to sin. These series of covenants are the Lord’s mechanisms for establishing

the great eschatology of salvation for mankind. The story of salvation of mankind can be

equated with the general story of man and even with the story of the Bible itself. The Bible is

the story of mankind which is the story of man’s salvation. Therefore, all three take root in the

same genesis: the beginning of mankind, Adam and Eve.

On the sixth day of Creation God made man after his likeness and man would have to

rule over the earth in his stead.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let

them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,

and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing

that creepeth upon the earth. (Gen. 1:26)

Immediately God made a covenant with man, a literal and spiritual contract between the two

parties. Any which contract, whether between God and man or between man and man, must

by definition contain at least one term. As long as those terms are not violated, the covenant

cannot be breached and both parties have one or more obligations to the other party involved

in the covenant. If, however, the terms of covenant are infringed upon, the covenant can be

broken off by one party.

The covenant between God and Adam and Eve contains two terms in total. These

terms coincide with the reciprocal obligations the parties have to one another. From his side,

when embarking on the covenant with Adam and Eve, God has put forth only one obligation

towards Adam and Eve: he must sustain them in the Garden of Eden. “And the LORD God

took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (Gen. 2:15). It is

clear that God foresaw man to hold a favoured position in his creation from the beginning by

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a threefold argument. Firstly, he intended man to rule over the remainder of the creation as is

obviously stated above in Gen. 1:26. Secondly, he has shaped man in his likeness, a predicate

only man enjoys. From this follows that both animate and inanimate creation, which of course

lack the predicate of being shaped in the Lord’s likeness, are somewhat of a lesser creation

than man. This idea of man being the superior creation is again mirrored in man having

dominion over the rest of creation. And thirdly, God vows to sustain man in the Garden of

Eden, which implies the following privileges: man would live a life eternal in which he would

never have to toil and labour and, above all, in which he would enjoy God’s grace and favour

eternally. This is the single one term that the Lord has to uphold when entering into the

covenant with mankind, at this point consisting solely of Adam and Eve. Perhaps it is

incorrect to identify this term as an obligation. Rather it should be seen as an act and a token

of God’s sheer benevolence towards mankind. It is not a question of obligation, but a question

of how God feels he should treat mankind: he feels himself obligated to sustain mankind in

this way, because he is benevolent. Furthermore a second remark can be made. Let us take a

brief look into the semantics of Gen. 1:29, Gen. 2:8 and Gen. 2:15.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is

upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a

tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. (Gen. 1:29)

And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put

the man whom he had formed. (Gen. 2:8)

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to

dress it and to keep it. (Gen. 2:15)

From the conjugation of the verbs in these extracts, which all are in a past tense, can be derived

that the Lord already has fulfilled his obligation towards man. His end of the bargain, the term

of the covenant he has to meet, is already met.

There is a second term in the covenant, viz. the obligation of Adam and Eve towards

the Lord. This term is stated in Gen. 2:16,17:

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And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the

garden thou mayest freely eat:/ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt

surely die.

This is the single one term which Adam and Eve have to meet in the covenant. As long as they

do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Lord will sustain them in

paradise and mankind will keep its favoured position. God is more than willing to keep

mankind covenanted, under the condition that they obey his only command. He even confronts

them with the consequences, should they eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil:

they shall surely die. Death is a notion that is not yet introduced into the world at that point,

for, as we have seen earlier, all life enjoys life eternal. The potential punishment is a severe

one: if mankind does not obey the term posited by the Lord, death shall be introduced to the

world and mankind will lose their eternal life, along with its favoured status. However, one

may assume that the Lord had expected this punishment to stay within the realm of the

hypothetical. Because, we can build upon the axiom that God is omniscient. Therefore he must

know the nature of man and his limitations. And if he deems man capable of ruling the earth at

his stead and if he grants mankind a favourable position within creation, than he must hold

mankind in high esteem. Therefore the Lord must consider Adam and Eve very much capable

of holding to the term.

1.2. Original Sin and the deterioration of mankind

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was

pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of

the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and

he did eat. (Gen. 3:6)

Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and evil, thus infringing on God’s

sole term and thereby breaking the covenant between God and Mankind, viz. Adam and Eve.

This is the Original Sin. And these are its immediate consequences: the woman will experience

sorrow in giving birth and she will be ruled by her husband (Gen. 3:16), the man will now have

to labour the earth for food (Gen. 3:18) and lastly, man will be expelled from the Garden of

Eden (Gen. 3:23). The latter implicates that mankind has not only lost its favoured position and

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is cast away from God’s grace, it is also introduced to the notion of death. Eternal life and

God’s grace are intrinsically bound to residence in the Garden of Eden. Thus a physical

removal from Eden implies the introduction of death and a life devoid of God’s grace. The

Lord’s warning in Gen. 2:17 has now come true: eat of the fruits of the tree and thou shall

surely die. The Original Sin thus introduces three essential notions into man’s existence: death,

the absence of God’s grace and sin. Mankind has learned that to violate a term of the divine

covenant is a sin that deserves adequate punishment.

Out of the grace of God, mankind starts to deteriorate fast. It is made clear from the

beginning that mankind can not cope with being cast out of Eden. Only one generation after

Adam and Eve, the continuation of sin is ensured as Cain slaughters his own brother Abel. It

seems that mankind is now determined to an existence saturated with sin, much to the

discontent of the Lord. Sinful generation after sinful generation follows until the Lord decides

he can no longer stand idly by:

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that

every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually./

And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it

grieved him at his heart./ And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I

have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the

creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made

them. (Gen. 6:5-7)

Indeed mankind has deteriorated. The Original Sin of Adam and Eve has past over entire

generations and has grown into the Fall of Man. God is now actually repenting ever having

created mankind. He maybe realises that creating man in his likeness was mistake: “And the

LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Gen. 3:22).

God is now contemplating on a way to set his mistake straight: he will destroy mankind and

beasts alike, thereby erasing all of creation, but also any evidence of a divine mistake. The fate

of mankind seems sealed as it appears that nothing could ever convince God not to destroy

man.

This is the outcome of God’s covenant with Adam and Eve. After the covenant was

broken through man’s fault, mankind was expelled from Eden, bereft of eternal life and God’s

grace and sin was introduced into the world. Mankind soon started to deteriorate and was

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determined to lead an existence full of sin. Because of its sinful nature, mankind now faced

utter destruction by the hands of the Lord.

But along with sin and death, another theological concept was introduced via Original

Sin. If mankind, fallen from the grace of God, was ever to regain God’s grace, it would now

need salvation. Man was originally already in God’s grace and favour and sin was totally

absent from the world. Man did not need to be saved as there was no reason for man’s

salvation. Thus the introduction of sin and man’s mortality coincides with the introduction of

the possibility of salvation. If he wished to save mankind again and to restore its favoured

position, God would need a redemptive plan in which mankind’s sins could be washed away.

1.3. “So glory is departed from England” : the deterioration of England

At this point we turn to the social, political and religious fabric in sixteenth and

seventeenth century England. Politically and religiously, especially the seventeenth century

was a very troublesome age. It was an era which saw the onset of numerous conflicts. After the

relatively peaceful reigns of Elizabeth I and James VI, Charles I succeeded the throne. Under

the reign of the absolute monarch, England and Great Britain had undergone a dismissal of

Parliament, a controversial religious government, religious persecution, numerous uprisings

and two Civil Wars.

In Protestant circles these conflicts caused great turmoil. Certain branches within

Protestant thinking could not identify themselves with the Anglican Church any longer. They

came to be known as dissenters or Puritans2

2 The term ‘puritan’ was originally a mocking term for that part of reformed thought that sought to purify the Anglican Church, which, according to these radical Protestants, had become wholly corrupt.

. These Puritans, who relied on strict biblical

reading and interpretation, started to compare the conflict-heavy situation in England with the

situation of mankind after the Fall of Man in the Book of Genesis. They saw grave

resemblances between the current turmoil of their age and the deterioration of man after

Original Sin. In what follows, we shall further outline the religious and political conflicts in

seventeenth century England and try to provide adequate proof for the thesis above, viz. that

Puritans equated the political and religious turmoil in seventeenth century England with the

deterioration of mankind after the Fall of Man, as described in the opening chapters of the

Book of Genesis. We will try to establish this through a close reading of three Puritan sermons

from the early Seventeenth Century, i.e. The Danger of Desertion by Thomas Hooker, Reasons

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to be Considered for […] the Intended Plantation in New England by John Winthrop and New

England’s Tears for Old England’s Fears by William Hooke.

1.3.1. Thomas Hooker: The Danger of Desertion

Puritan liberal Thomas Hooker is remembered as one of the most important theologians

and preachers of the New England Puritan communities, as one of the founders of the Colony

of Connecticut and as a dedicated shepherd to his Hartford flock in Connecticut. He migrated

to New England in 1633.

In a sermon delivered in 1626 Hooker addresses the turmoil and the outcome of the

Thirty Years’ War3

in continental Europe. He proclaims that England has been spared the fate

of continental Europe because the country enjoys God’s grace:

[…] when the fire of God’s fury hath consumed all the country round about

us; Bohemia, and the Palatinate, and Denmark; when the fire hath thus

burnt up all; yet this little cottage, this little England, this span of ground,

that this should not be searched? Nay, when the swords hath ruined and

overcome all other parts of Christendom […] there is no complaining in our

streets, our wives are not husbandless, our children are not fatherless. Mark

the reason and ground of all is nothing else but God’s mercy toward us.

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 62)

From the first line of this extensive passage may be clear that it is God himself who is

wilfully destroying those parts of continental Europe. Hooker, and with him of course the

larger part of radical Protestants, believe that God is so furious at man for behaving in these

blasphemous ways, viz. arguing over religion and waging war for its sake, that he has

undertaken adequate action against man: “the fire hath thus burnt up all”. Nothing less than

total destruction is deemed an adequate response to the state of man. Surely Hooker has an

apocalyptic scenario in mind for continental Europe. Luckily this scenario does not extend to

England, Hooker claims. God’s grace upon England is the only reason why he spares

3 The Thirty Years’ War spanned between the years 1618 and 1648 and was waged in the German monarchies, Spain, France, Holland, Denmark and Sweden. The war grew out of religious disputes between Protestant and Roman Catholic kings in present-day Germany. The outcome of the war was that the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation was triumphant over Protestant reformists whose armies suffered great losses. Bohemia, Palatinate, Denmark and Germany were the sites of these protestant defeats.

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England from these calamities. Thus if God should take away his grace and mercy from

England, then surely it would face the same cruel fate. But we can derive from Hooker’s

peace of mind that this is clearly not the case at the time this sermon was written and

performed in 1626.

In The Danger of Desertion from 1631 Hooker revises his earlier statements:

England’s sins are very great, and our warnings are and have been great;

but yet our mercies are far greater. England hath been a mirror of mercies.

Yet now God may leave it, and make it the mirror of his justice…


Though he still claims that the nation of England is still within God’s grace, he foresees that

God is going to leave the shores of England. Due to its many sins, the nation has irreversibly

started to deteriorate and God is left no choice but to cast also England out of his grace.

Indeed only five years after Hooker had proclaimed that England would never undergo the

same fate as continental Europe, it now seems that Hooker has to revise his earlier

assumption as God’s mirror of justice is already pending over England. Hooker expects that

England’s destruction is close, as will be evident from a further reading of the sermon. But

let us first try to contextualise Hooker’s quite sudden change of mind from the year 1626 to

1631.

1.3.2. England under Charles I and Archbishop Laud

Let us take a closer look at the socio-religious fabric in England in the early

seventeenth century. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Roman Catholic

Counter-Reformation, the papal answer to the Protestant Reformation, had been successful4.

The renewed success of popery led to a hightened awareness in respect to Catholicism and

popery in predominately Protestant countries. Especially in England the suspicion and

distrust of anything that merely resembled popery grew larger and larger5

4 Van Melkebeek, Monique (2002). Geschiedenis van de Angelsaksische Landen. University of Ghent

. In this respect

5 That suspicion towards Catholicism was especially rampant in England in the seventeenth century should be no surprise. In the early seventeenth century England had already a considerable history of conflicts having to do with the opposition between Protestantism and Catholicism. For more than a century, since the reign of Henry VIII, protestant and catholic kings and queens had succeeded each other, leading to the hegemony of one faith and the persecution of the other faith. The larger tendency, however, is that Catholicism was declining and Catholics became more and more suspect.

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Charles I made some decisions that would not go unnoticed in Protestant circles. In 1625 the

absolute monarch married the Roman Catholic Henrietta Maria. This was against the

objections of Parliament and public opinion, of course led by fear that this marriage would

undermine the Protestant establishment. Furthermore Charles I allied himself with two

controversial religious figures: Richard Montagu and William Laud. Montagu argued against

the teachings of John Calvin, thereby discrediting himself with many Puritans in England.

William Laud was accused of harbouring Catholic tendencies in his Church policy and of

generally being anti-Puritan as he saw the Puritans as a threat to the royal control of the

Anglican Church. The year 1629 is a landmark in these developments. It is the year in which

Charles I decides to rule over England without Parliament, which introduces the Eleven

Years Tyranny or the Personal Rule. During these eleven years, from 1629 to 1640, Charles I

reigns with absolute power over England, in which he would impose, virtually unchallenged,

his and William Laud’s personal policies on the nation. During the Personal Rule, the right

hand man of Charles I was Archbishop William Laud. Though he was not ordained

Archbishop yet in 1629 or in 1631, at the time of Hooker’s writing of The Danger of

Desertion, Laud’s ecclesiastical career was steadily on the rise, being ordained Bishop of

London the year before, in 1628. His policies and Catholic and anti-Puritan tendencies were

undoubtedly well-known. By the year of 1631, after two years of personal reign of Charles I

(and of William Laud), Hooker and the English Puritans might well have had every right to

despair and moan at the anti-Puritan tendencies that were apparent in England and to foresee

a bleak future for them and for the whole of England.

Laud was not unrightfully charged with Catholic tendencies in his ecclesiastical

policy. He wished to move the Anglican Church away from Calvinism and more in a

ceremonial and sacramental direction. He insisted that the Church of England’s liturgy be

celebrated with all of the ceremony and vestments called for by the Book of Common Prayer.

This is completely antithetical to Calvinistic reformed thought, which of course sought to

draw the Church away from any ceremonial liturgy. To try to re-impose ceremonial

celebration, as is still common in Catholic liturgy, was a public attack on Calvinism and the

large Puritan community in England. Laud was also an advocate of Arminianism, a theology

that emphasised the free will of man. Arminianism claims that man is free to reject divine

salvation. Again this is antithetical to Calvinist creed, which is based on predestination of

salvation.

It should cause no wonder that Puritans all over the country started to believe that

these Catholic tendencies were corrupting the Anglican Church. In the light of the recent

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success of the Counter-Reformation and the Protestant defeats on the European continent

during the Thirty Years’ War, these threats must have been very tangible and real. The

Puritans feared the corruption of the Anglican Church and expected that England would face

the same fate as Bohemia, Palatinate and Denmark. Those Protestant Churches were overrun

by the Counter-Reformation and started to degenerate, with raging wars and Protestant

defeats as a result. This history of continental Europe is exactly the bleak future that English

Puritans foresaw for their nation. England was on the verge of corruption, war and utter

destruction.

1.3.3. Hooker’s expectation of England’s destruction

We now return to the Hooker’s sermon The Danger of Desertion. Now it is evident

why Hooker had earlier on in this sermon professed that God will take away his mercy from

England and that he will pass judgement upon the island. Hooker now foresees England’s

bleak future:

Go to Bohemia, and from thence to the Palatinate (and so to Denmark) and

from thence to other parts of Germany. […] God’s churches are made heaps

of stones, and those Bethels6


wherein God’s name was called upon, are now

defiled temples for satan and superstition to reign in. […] Now are these

churches become desolate, and may not England?

Hooker readdresses the history of those continental Protestant Churches, but instead of

claiming that England will escape this fate, as he did earlier in his sermon from 1626, he now

foresees the same destiny for the churches (i.e. the Protestant character of the Anglican

Church) in England. The threat of corruption through the introduction of Catholicism in the

Church of England has now become very real.

Hooker continues to outline the future of England, which is in the process of copying

the history of continental Europe. Since the element of corruption is already filled in, only

the destruction of England by God is what separates the fates of continental Europe and

England. It seems to Hooker that this apocalyptic destruction is irrevocably set in motion.

6 From the Hebrew, meaning house of God. (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 66)

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The divine destruction is no longer a potentialis in the future but a realis in the future, as

Hooker sees it:

[…] for miseries are nigh at hand in all probability! When we observe what

God hath done for us, all things are ripe to destruction […] When there are

so many prophecies in it of its destruction, yet we cannot be persuaded of it.


Look to it, for God is going, and if he do go, then our glory goes also. […]

So glory is departed from England; for England hath seen her best days,

and the reward of sin is coming on apace; for God is packing up of his

gospel […]


Hooker is convinced that the destruction of England is nigh. Heimert and Delbanco further

remark that The Danger of Desertion is often called Thomas Hooker’s “Farewell Sermon”

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 63). This led to the assumption that Hooker wrote the sermon in

the light of his departure for New England and that Hooker is saying “farewell” to England.

But Hooker did not migrate to New England until 1633, so this sermon from 1631 could not

have been written in the light of Hooker’s departure. In fact, one version of the sermon makes

no mention of New England whatsoever. Heimert and Delbanco claim that the entity that is

saying “farewell” to England is not Hooker, but God himself. The Danger of Desertion

addresses the danger of God’s desertion from England and therefore it is often called the

“Farewell Sermon”. In 1657 the same sermon was published under the title of “The signs of

God foresaking a people” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 63). All of this is an additional

argument that the Puritans in fact believed that God’s grace was departing from England and

that divine destruction of the isle was nigh.

1.3.4. The Fall of the English Man according to John Winthrop

John Winthrop is perhaps the most famous of the New England Puritans to this day.

The former attorney was elected as governor of the New England colony even before his

actual departure to the new world and was re-elected many times. He is considered to be one

of the major theorists of the Puritan cause. Perhaps he is best known for his “City upon a

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Hill”-speech, i.e. the sermon A Model of Christian Charity, which was delivered on board of

the Arabella, prior to the landing in 1630.

In his sermon Reasons to be Considered for Justifying the Undertakers of the Intended

Plantation in New England and for Encouraging Such Whose Hearts God Shall Move to Join

with Them in It from 1629 Winthrop sums up nine justifications for the Puritans’ migration to

the new world. From these nine justifications we will single out two justifications to illustrate

that also Winthrop considered England ready for divine judgement.

In his second justification for a removal from England Winthrop laments the state of

the Church of England: “All other churches of Europe are brought to desolation, and our

sins, for which the Lord begins already to frown upon us, do threaten us fearfully.” (Heimert

& Delbanco 1985 : 71). This is a reprisal of Thomas Hooker’s case in The Danger of

Desertion. The Anglican Church has become corrupted and the Lord is going to pass

judgement upon the widespread sins of the English people. Winthrop continues this thought in

his third justification, in which he claims:

This land grows weary of her inhabitants, so as man who is the most

precious of all creatures is here more vile and base than the earth we tread

upon, and of less price among us than a horse or a sheep; […]


Due to man’s sins in England, Winthrop claims that man has deteriorated so far that he is more

vile and base than the earth itself and maybe even of less value than the beasts. This is truly an

attack on the English man. In the Renaissance a widespread doctrine was the theory of “The

Great Chain of Being”. This doctrine elucidated the position of man in the universe and his

general nature. The highest order in the universe is God, followed by the angels at his side;

then follows man; a rung further down the ladder is beast, which is immediately followed by

the lowest order in the universe: all things inanimate. The doctrine explains man’s position as

in between angels divine and beasts. Because man is prone to both sides: he possesses the soul

and the aspiration towards heaven like the angels, but also the fallibility of the flesh like the

beasts. Therefore inside of man there is an eternal struggle between the spirit and the flesh,

between heaven and earth. Now we can see that for Winthrop to call the English man more

base than the beasts and even more base than the earth (which is of course inanimate) is a great

attack on the current position that the English man, and perhaps the European man by

extension, has brought upon himself. Furthermore, this fall of the English man is very

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reminiscent of the expulsion of man from the Garden of Eden and the subsequent Fall of Man

as described in the Book of Genesis. When man was expelled from Eden, he lost his semi-

divine status and his promised dominion over the beasts (cf. supra, Gen. 1:26). Man no longer

holds a status superior to the beast but a parallel one. Winthrop takes the reasoning in Genesis

a step further and assigns man a lower status than the beast. From the banishment from Eden

also followed that man became mortal (cf. supra): “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat

bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto

dust shalt thou return.” (Gen. 3:19). This is the mythological explanation for the

decomposition of a dead body: it turns into earth. The phrase “for dust thou art” is of special

importance here. Because God shaped man out of dust: “And the LORD God formed man of

the dust of the ground.” (Gen. 2 : 7). Therefore man ìs dust, man and dust are the same, which

becomes clear once he has died. Again Withrop seems to take this reasoning from Genesis just

a step further. He does not equate man with dust, he deems man more base than the ground he

walks upon. Through this double reference to the wrathful God in the Book of Genesis, it

seems that Winthrop himself actually is passing judgement upon the English people like God

was passing judgement upon Adam and Eve.

1.3.5. William Hooke and the Civil Wars

William Hooke wrote the sermon New England’s Tears for Old England’s Fears

(1640) when he had already migrated to New England. We will use his sermon as a decisive

argument, though it be an argument in retrospect, that the Puritans in fact believed that the

nation of England was ripe for divine destruction and the Puritan belief that this supposed

destruction resembled the near destruction of mankind after the Fall of Man as described in the

Book of Genesis (Gen. 6:5). In this sermon Hooke refers to the Civil War that is about to break

out in England.

Let us first look into the political fabric of early seventeenth century England7

7 Van Melkebeek, Monique (2002). Geschiedenis van de Angelsaksische Landen. University of Ghent

. After a

number of conflicts between Charles I and his Parliament, amongst other about Charles’

marriage to a Catholic and about differences in opinion about (the funding of) Charles’ war

against Catholic Spain, Charles resolved not to rely on Parliament anymore for further

monetary aid in 1629. This led to the dissolution of Parliament by the absolute monarch and a

subsequent Personal Rule of Charles I which would last to 1640. During his personal reign

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Charles and his right hand man Archbishop Laud imposed a series of unpopular and

outrageous laws and acts. During this Eleven Year’s Tyranny two opposing sides were formed:

one the hand were those loyal to Charles I and the throne, the so-called royalists or Cavaliers,

and on the other hand were those that sided with Parliament, the so-called Roundheads. The

conflicts between the two fractions continued and culminated when Charles I had decided to

impose the Common Book of Prayer (cf. supra) in the strict Presbyterian8

The Puritans’ reaction upon hearing about the Civil War in their mother country was

twofold: a large number of pilgrims thought about how they could well be responsible for the

outbreak of the Civil War as, some ten years ago, they decided to flee England, instead of

staying in England and trying to help resolve the growing tension. It is an under-exposed fact

that during the Civil War many Puritans migrated back to their mother country for this reason

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 102). The other reaction, and the more common response, to the

Civil War is one of resignation: England had long since ignored the many signs of its

destruction and now the predicted cataclysm was at hand. The Puritans who eventually

migrated to New England had foreseen the apocalyptic signs and now were saved from the

calamities. Hooke holds an intermediate position: he laments the rising outbreak of the Civil

War and wonders whether he and his listeners are not jointly responsible for it, but at the

same time he seems to mock those who stayed behind and now face their just punishment for

that ill decision, while the New Englanders have escaped that fate.

Scotland. The

outcome of these conflicts with Scotland was a military and financial disaster for Charles I and

he saw himself forced to re-install Parliament in order to ask for funds. This re-instalment of

Parliament ended the Personal Rule in 1640. The end of the Personal Rule did not mean the

end of conflicts between Cavaliers and Roundheads and both parties started an arms race. The

first Civil War broke out in 1642 and lasted three years. Its outcome was a defeat for Charles

and his royalists. Parliament expected that the defeated king would meet their demands for a

constitutional monarchy, but instead Charles remained defiant and made a pact with Scotland

that he would preserve the Scottish Presbyterian Church if Scotland would only invade

England. The second Civil War broke out in 1648 but was soon ended by the superior armies

of Parliament. After eleven years of absolute tyranny and after provoking two Civil Wars,

Charles I was beheaded in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London. The impact of two Civil

Wars on the Puritans in New England was not a light one, as Hooke says: “No wars so cruel,

so unnatural, so desolating, as civil wars” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 105).

8 Presbyterianism is a fraction within reformed Protestant thinking that, amongst other, relies on an egalitarian division of power within the Church. It does not allow bishops or priests to be ordained.

23

The sermon starts off as a lament for the calamities and the many casualties the cruel

war is undoubtedly going to take:

This is much, and more it would be, if the edges of these and other our

comforts were not this day turned by the fear of civil strifes and combustions

in the land of our nativity, which do not a little abate the sweetness of all

other our hapiness to us, and call for lamentation and sackcloth at our

hands…


Although Hooke is inviting his listeners to join his lament for their motherland, he cannot

resist the temptation of mentioning that the Puritan emigrants have escaped this destiny, long

since predicted by Puritan preachers back in England. As such, the sermon comes across more

as a false lament and as a mocking sermon. At several instances, Hooke seems to enjoy the

situation in England, especially when contrasted to the blissful state of happiness in New

England. He gloats:

Let us therefore, I beseech you, lay aside the thoughts of all our comforts

this day, and let us fasten our eyes upon the calamities of our brethren in

old England, calamities, at least imminent calamities dropping, swords that

have hung over their heads by a twine thread, judgments long since foreseen

by many of God’s messengers in the causes […]


He seemingly wants to recapitulate the different choices made, the choice of staying in

England or the choice for departure, and their consequences. In his false lamentation, he is

actually mocking the ‘old Englanders’, their blindness, their ill choice and their just

punishment, while he is celebrating the choice of the emigrants and their subsequent bliss. It

seems to Hooke that God has truly divided the sinners from the saints.

Hooke goes on describing the horrors of war, to further contrast both parties’ situations:

[…] the dividing of a king from his subjects, and him from them, their

mutual taking up of arms in opposition and defence; the consequences, even

the gloomy and dark consequences thereof, are killing and slaying, and

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sacking and burning, and robbing, and rifling, cursing and blaspheming,

&c.


The instruments are clashing swords, rattling spears, skull-dividing

holberds, murthering pieces, and thundering cannons, from whose mouths

proceed the fire, and smell, and smoke, and terror, death, as it were, of the

very bottomless pit.


[…] in yonder file there is a man hath his arm struck off from his shoulder,

another by him hath lost his leg; here stands a soldier with half a face, there

fights another upon his stumps, and at once both kills and is killed;


Hooke describes the horrors of civil war with such great detail and eye for plasticity that one is

inclined to think that Hooke is not merely describing a war, but an apocalypse and indeed is

trying to convince an audience to entertain that thought with him. At last the many warnings of

preachers before him have come true. Preachers such as Hooker and Winthrop who cried

beforehand that the destruction of England was nigh because England’s sins had become too

grave, in retrospect and from another continent, seem to have been great visionaries. Most

Puritans in New England are convinced that the outbreak of the Civil War in England is the

start of God’s retribution, his great apocalyptic and vindictive scheme that is finally set in

motion for mankind in England since the English people have fallen from his grace.

A final citation from Hooke’s sermon could perhaps provide minor proof that the

apparent destruction of England is a secular repetition of the very destruction that God

intended to inflict upon man as described in Gen. 6:5 (cf. supra). It seems that the biblical

history of the Fall of Man and the following destruction of man by a wrathful God is repeating

itself, just as the Puritan preachers predicted. England is facing destruction from the hands of

God because the English have deteriorated too far due to his many sins. At one point in the

sermon, Hooke laments the situation in England as follows:

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Did not the sun first shine there upon our heads? Did not that land bear us,

even that pleasant island, but for sin, I would say, that garden of the Lord,

that paradise?…


Hooke describes England as the garden of the Lord. This is an unmistakable reference to the

Garden of Eden. He clearly compares England to the Garden of Eden, thus this further

reasoning can be made: the English sinners are Adam and Eve, the English nation are their

sinful offspring, the Puritan God who acts in these sermons is the same wrathful God taking

action against mankind in the first chapters of the Book of Genesis and the Civil War, or all

calamities that fall upon old England, is the secular version of the actual destruction of man

after the Fall of Man as described in the Bible. Further and more conclusive proof can be found

in chapter 2.2. ( 2.2. “God begins to ship away his Noahs”), in which will be established that

the Puritan migration is the secular version of Noah’s escape from the Flood. For now, the

conclusion is that the Puritans’ warnings of a divine destruction of England seem to have come

true in the Civil War and that the Old World is the countertype of the Old Covenant between

God and Adam and Eve, through the equation of England with the Garden of Eden.

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2. The Puritans’ departure from England as the escape from destruction 2.1. Noah, The Flood and the Redemption of Mankind

In the previous chapter (1.2. Original Sin and the deterioration of mankind), we ended

our reading of the Book of Genesis with the Lord’s resolution of destroying mankind.

Because of Adam and Eve’s breaking of the Old Covenant, mankind was cast away from

God’s grace, after which mankind began to deteriorate. Discontent with the fallen state of

man, God resolved to destroy the whole of mankind in order to set his mistake straight. This

resolution is apparent from Gen. 6:7, at which point we ended the discourse of mankind in the

Book of Genesis. Let us now resume that discourse and let us include the following verse, viz.

Gen. 6:8:

And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the

face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the

fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them./ But Noah

found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

(Gen. 6:7-8)

The vindictive scheme of God towards mankind has now become somewhat

problematic. God had resolved to destroy mankind because the whole of mankind had fallen

from his grace. As Noah did manage to gain divine grace, God can no longer destroy the

whole of mankind because that would include Noah also. The Lord now needs to alter his

plan:

And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the

earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them

with the earth.

(Gen. 6:13)

And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy

all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing

that is in the earth shall die./ But with thee will I establish my covenant; and

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thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons'

wives with thee.

(Gen. 6:17-18)

God will continue his vindictive scheme, but he alters it slightly: his scheme of destruction will

not include Noah, nor Noah’s wife, their three sons and the sons’ wives. Thus God saves a total

of eight men and women from destruction. It appears that God’s scheme of destruction has at

the same time become a scheme of salvation. God offers mankind an escape from total

annihilation, through the salvation of Noah and his kin from the Flood. Mankind is being

renewed by God as he destroys deteriorated mankind but at the same time saves the individuals

that have found God’s grace. Therefore God is establishing a rebirth of mankind: he wipes

away the sinners, but keeps the saints.

This renewal of mankind is echoed in the renewal of the covenant between God and

man. As the Old Covenant with Adam backfired, one may assume that the Lord will not

embark upon a new covenant with man lightly. But already from Gen. 6:18 (cf. supra), it is

clear that he is willing to make a covenant with Noah: “But with thee I will establish my

covenant”. This double renewal, the physical renewal of mankind and the renewal of the divine

covenant, marks the genesis of a new era for mankind, an era in which previous sins of

mankind literally will be washed away by the Flood, an era in which mankind can start over

with a clean slate. After the Flood has washed away nearly all the flesh, which of old is

associated with sin, God’s relation to man shall be exclusively benign:

And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut

off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a

flood to destroy the earth.

(Gen. 9:11)

This divine promise that mankind henceforth shall be spared, is echoed in yet another divine

promise towards mankind: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be

fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” (Gen. 9:1). Like Adam9

9 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Gen. 1:28)

before, Noah is

blessed by the Lord and commanded to multiply and to replenish the earth. Though these

words remind us of the very same words that God spoke unto Adam, we must keep in mind

28

the renewal of mankind, both physically and spiritually. We must also take account of the

promise that mankind henceforth shall be spared from the fate of Adam and his seed.

Therefore this divine blessing and promise of multiplication must not remind one of Adam

and his fate. Rather it makes explicit the divine approval of the beginning of a new era for

mankind.

2.2. God begins to ship away his Noahs

We now return to the Puritan sermons discussed in the previous chapter: the sermons

of Thomas Hooker and John Winthrop. In our discussion of those sermons, we saw that

Hooker and Winthrop had warned their audiences of the approaching divine destruction of

England. The English Puritans saw a great analogy between the deterioration of England and

the biblical divine resolution of destroying mankind after the Fall of Man. But let us first take

a brief look at an extract from a very important sermon from the year 1630: God’s Promise to

His Plantation by John Cotton. In consideration of the many sins in England, Cotton makes

the following conclusion:

There be evils to be avoided that may warrant removal. First, when some

grievous sins overspread a country that threaten desolation… as in a

threatening a wise man foreseeth the plague […]


It has already been established that Puritans were convinced that England was

suffering from its many sins. The English Puritans were torn between two choices. They

could choose to stay in their motherland and help the country in its hour of need. Indeed, this

was the choice of many Puritans. They sought to purify the Anglican Church from within and

stayed to draw their swords against the sinful nation, because they still believed that England

could be saved from destruction. The second choice was the choice of abandoning England.

This was the choice of those Puritans who reckoned that England was led too far astray for

salvation and that destruction could no longer be avoided. Of course, Hooker, Winthrop,

Hooke and Cotton must be assigned to the latter group of Puritans. From the extract above, it

is clear that Cotton indeed chose removal before staying in England.

In The Danger of Desertion Hooker draws the same conclusion as Cotton and he tries

to convince his audience to share his point of view:

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Will not these things move you, my brethren? Methinks I see your colors

rise. I am glad of it. I hope it is to a good end. You may be wise, and happily

so wise as to choose life rather than death. Now the Lord grant it, for he

delights not in your destruction…


Hooker here makes an implication explicit. He equates the choice of departure with the choice

of life. This cannot but remind us of Noah’s Ark: only those who were on the ark survived the

destruction of mankind. Likewise, Hooker believes that only those who choose departure will

survive the total destruction of England. Therefore, the departure of the Puritans from

England is very analogous to Noah’s escape from the Flood.

Like Cotton and Hooker, John Winthrop also dealt with the problem of the two

choices for the Puritans. According to Heimert and Delbanco (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 :

70), correspondence between Winthrop and his friends and relatives, between the years 1628

and 1630, suggests that Winthrop’s proposal for fleeing England was challenged by his

relatives. The same question rose every single time: how could Winthrop excuse a desertion

from England, if its deterioration was as grave as he claimed? Winthrop’s sermon Reasons to

be Considered (1629) could be read as a record of that dialogue between him and his

relatives. It is Winthrop’s answer to his relatives’ challenge.

Objection 3: We have feared a judgement a great while, but yet we are safe:

it were better therefore to stay till it come, and either we may fly then or, if

we be overtaken in it, we may well content ourselves to suffer with such a

church as ours is.

Answer: It is likely this consideration made the churches beyond the seas,

as, the Palatinate, Rochelle, &c., to sit still at home and not to look out for

shelter while they might have found it, but the woeful spectacle of their ruin

may teach us more wisdom, to avoid the plague when it is foreseen, and not

to tarry as they did till it overtake us…


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Winthrop also prefers to flee England and not to stay and await its destruction. He is

convinced that England will face the same fate as the Palatinate10

. Moreover, Winthrop is

convinced that God has actually intended for him and his companions to migrate:

All other churches of Europe are brought to desolation, and our sins, for

which the Lord begins already to frown upon us, do threaten us fearfully,

and who knows but that God hath provided this place to be a refuge for

many whom he means to save out of the general calamity; and seeing the

church hath no place left to fly into but the wilderness, what better work can

there be than to go before and provide tabernacles, and food for her,

against she cometh thither?


Winthrop is convinced that God means to save a handful from destruction. The parallel

between the biblical destruction of man after the deterioration of man and the destruction of

England has now become a continued analogy. God saved Noah from destruction and now,

according to Winthrop, he is going to save the Puritans from destruction. So not only is the

destruction of England a countertype, a secular version, of the biblical destruction of

mankind, we now can argue that also the migration of the Puritans is a countertype of Noah’s

escape from destruction.

Perhaps the most convincing arguments that the Puritans deployed this typology are to

be found in Thomas Hooker’s The Danger of Desertion. At two points in the text he makes

two very apparent references to (the story of) Noah. In this sermon Hooker is trying to warn

his public against the calamities that are on their doorstep. At one point in his search for

convincing and final arguments to prove his thesis, he claims: “What if I should tell you what

God told me yesternight that he would destroy England and lay it waste?”. Let us compare

this extract with Gen. 6:13: “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me;

for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the

earth.”. If Hooker claims that God has spoken to him and that the Lord had said that he would

destroy England, than there is no doubt that Hooker is establishing a very apparent analogy

between himself and Noah. The second instance of analogy is even more obvious:

10 We have discussed the Palatinate and the Thirty Years War in chapter 1.3.1. (1.3.1. Hooker’s expectation of England’s destruction)

31

God begins to ship away his Noahs, which prophesied and foretold that

destruction was near; and God makes account that New England shall be a

refuge for his Noahs and his Lots, a rock and a shelter for his righteous

ones to run unto; and those that were vexed to see the ungodly lives of the

people in this wicked land, shall there be safe.


We have now satisfying proof that the Puritans saw a great analogy between the

destruction of England and their subsequent emigration to New England in the seventeenth

century on the one hand and the destruction of mankind and the subsequent salvation of Noah

in the Book of Genesis on the other hand. According to the Puritans, the destruction of

England is the destruction of mankind and the Puritans are Noah and his kin, who are saved

from that destruction.

2.3. The Puritans’ theory of a cyclical history

By migrating to New England the Puritans believed they had saved themselves from

the decline and destruction of England. At this point it would be interesting to briefly remark

on the Puritans’ view on history. In The New England Mind (1954) Perry Miller claims that

“[…] piety of the sort we have called Augustinian gave rise to a kind of cyclical theory of

history […]” (Miller 1954 : 465). According to Miller, the Puritans considered history to be a

cycle, a repetitive and constant sequence of periods of corruption and periods of reform. An

era of corruption would gradually evolve into a period of reform and eventually slide into an

era of corruption again. This view of history came to be very central and dominated the

Puritan’s scheme of thinking. For instance, if one believed the present era to be a period of

reform, one would already start to despair at the upcoming period of corruption. Or, vice

versa, when corruption and decay are to be found everywhere, the Puritan could well have

easily rejoiced in the era of reform that was at his doorstep. This cyclical view of history thus

is a doubly functioning mechanism: at the one hand it tempers feelings of contentment and

warns that decay is around the corner; at the other hand it is a mechanism that allows hope to

spring in periods of darkness, a mechanism that predicts salvation. Indeed, this view of

history, or of life in general, may be called very central to the Puritans’ mind. It is perhaps the

most quintessential doctrine in Puritan thought.

32

According to the Puritan supporters of this cyclical theory, a period of reform was

going strong in the early seventeenth century. The Puritans, who are of course to be situated

within the Protestant camp, recognised the era of reform in the Reformation (Miller 1954 :

465). According to the Protestants the Christian Church had been led astray for several

centuries by Catholicism. These centuries of Catholic domination of the European Christian

Church was seen as the era of corruption, which sooner or later had to end. The rise of

reformed thought in the late sixteenth century throughout (continental) Europe was thus seen

by the English Puritans as the turning point in history. The corrupted era of Catholicism

would finally be overthrown by the purifying Protestant Church, which would usher in a new

era of reformed thought. Thus for the Puritan supporters of the cyclical theory the age of

reform was undeniably set in motion.

But those same theologians gradually came to realise that their theory was not to

remain unchallenged. As we have seen in the previous chapter, Protestant Churches all over

continental Europe were overthrown by the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Nor could

reformed thought be unambiguously victorious over Catholicism in England. The Church

policy of archbishop Laud displayed several Catholic tendencies, to the discontent of the

Puritan congregations who feared a corrupting Catholic intrusion into the Church of England.

It was clear that maybe the Protestant Church was not all that victorious as the Puritans had

hoped it to be. Neither in England nor in continental Europe could reformed thought be

consolidated. Moreover, even within Protestant thought there was dissension. The doctrinal

positions won by Calvin and Luther, the very basis of Protestantism, were challenged by

several anarchist churches such as Anabaptism, Arminianism and Antinomianism. Could this

mean that the era of reform was not at all at the doorstep?

The era of reform was definitely set in motion; the Puritans stood their ground.

Reformed thought would undeniably usher in a new era, an era of reform that would end the

era of corruption. Only, it was apparent that this reform, or at least the reform to its full

extent, could not take place either in England or in continental Europe. The reform was set in

motion in Europe, but, so the Puritans reasoned, it was to reach its climax and glory in New

England. The New World was seen as a virgin country, a land that was not yet corrupted by

sins or malicious practices of man. The Puritans saw New England as the vacant lot in which

reformed thought could usher in a glorious new era unchallenged.

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3. The Puritans’ migration as the countertype of the Exodus

3.1. The Exodus of the Jews out of Egypt

In the previous chapter we discussed how the Puritans saw a meaningful analogy

between their migration to New England and Noah’s escape from the Flood. This typology

was established as a result of the Puritans’ belief that their departure was an escape from the

destruction of England. They were convinced that mankind would only be saved in New

England. The New World was the continent in which a new era for mankind would be

ushered. But the Puritans’ migration to New England was not only likened to the story of

Noah. The pilgrims saw their migration biblically mirrored in an even greater analogy. This

typology is perhaps far more obvious. One could not think about the migration of 700 settlers

from one country to another and not liken this with the greatest (biblical) migration of all

time: the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt to Canaan.

Let us first give a brief survey of the story of the Jews’ Exodus from Egypt. At the

beginning of the Book of Exodus the Jewish people find themselves afflicted by their bondage

in Egypt. Ever since Joseph and his brothers, the twelve sons of Jacob, came to Egypt, the

Jewish people have been made to toil as slaves in service of the pharaoh of Egypt. The Jewish

people thus lament their state of bondage:

And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and

the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried,

and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. (Ex. 2:23)

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are

in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I

know their sorrows;/ And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of

the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a

large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the

Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the

Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Ex. 3:7,8)

The Lord, who remembers his covenant with Abraham and with the whole of the Jewish

nation, resolves that he will deliver his people out of Egypt and into the promised land of

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Canaan. God appoints Moses, who will act as an instrument of God, to lead his people out of

slavery, out of the hands of the pharaoh, out of Egypt and into Canaan, the land of milk and

honey that was promised of old to the Jewish nation. In order to release his people from the

hands of the pharaoh, God will afflict Egypt with ten plagues if the pharaoh does not comply

with the Lord’s demand:

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the

LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me

in the wilderness. (Ex. 5:1)

The pharaoh refuses to grant God’s wish, after which plague upon plague is released on the

Egyptians. Finally the pharaoh sets the Jewish people free:

And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you

forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go,

serve the LORD, as ye have said. (Ex. 12:31)

Under the guidance of Moses and his brother Aaron, the Jewish people embark on a journey

that will last forty years and will eventually lead them to the promised land of Canaan.

3.2. Parallels between the Exodus and the Puritans’ migration from England

The analogies that can be drawn between the Exodus of the Jews and the Puritans’

migration are considerable. Though the Puritans were not politically oppressed in England,

like the Jews were in Egypt, one could very well claim that the Puritan minorities found

themselves in spiritual bondage of the Anglican Church. Especially under archbishop Laud

the Puritans felt religiously oppressed by the state of England. The parallel that can be drawn

between England and Egypt thus is a metaphorical one: both nations can be seen as the

oppressor of a people that wants to escape this bondage; Egypt is the political, cultural and

religious oppressor of the Jewish people, whereas England could be seen as the religious

oppressor of the Puritan people. In The Danger of Desertion Thomas Hooker refers to this

analogy of England and Egypt: “[…] for the Lord hath appointed a set time, saying, Exodus

9:5, Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 68)”. In

the sermon, we have seen earlier, Hooker warns for the destruction of England. Though this

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destruction should be mostly seen as a typology of the destruction of mankind in the Book of

Genesis, Hooker here makes a single reference to one of the ten plagues that preceded the

Exodus, viz. the plague of murrain. For a brief moment in the sermon, Hooker thus identifies

England with Egypt.

The more apparent references to the typology of the Exodus can be found in the

Puritan descriptions of the migration itself. In his history Wonder-Working Providence of

Sions Saviour, about the migration and the first years of settlement, Edward Johnson makes a

few references to the story of Exodus: “[…] your Christ hath commanded the Seas they shall

not swallow you […]” (Miller 1963 : 145). This phrase can very well be understood as an

allusion to the splitting of the Red Sea:

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the

sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry

land, and the waters were divided./ And the children of Israel went into the

midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them

on their right hand, and on their left.

(Ex. 14:21, 22)

We find another reference to the divine division of the Red Sea in Michael Wigglesworth’s

poem God’s Controversy with New-England from 1662. In this poem Wigglesworth lets the

persona of God speak to his people in New England:

[…] I safely led so many thousand miles, /

as if their journey had been through a plain?

(Miller 1963 : 611)

The Jews passed the Red Sea, walking on dry ground, we learned from the above extract from

the Book of Exodus. Wigglesworth claims that the Puritans experienced their passage over the

Atlantic Ocean as if the sea was split. By this, Wigglesworth of course means that God had

provided the Puritans with a safe passage, just like he did with the Jewish people.

Wigglesworth continues to allude to the Book of Exodus in his poem God’s Controversy

with New-England:

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Whose soules I fed and strengthened throughout/

With finest spirituall food most finely drest?/

On whom I rained living bread from Heaven,/

Withouten Errour’s bane, or Superstition’s leaven?

Wigglesworth here makes a reference to the renowned manna, the bread that rained from the

skies in the desert of Sinai:

And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the

wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the

ground./ And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It

is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is

the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.

(Ex. 16:14, 15)

From these extracts it is clear that Wigglesworth believes that God accompanied the Puritan

settlers in their journey to New England. The Puritans’ God is the same God that led the

Jewish people out of Egyptian bondage and into the promised land of Canaan.

In 1630, John Winthrop delivers his famous speech A Model of Christian Charity on

board of the Arabella. The sermon can be read as a set of guidelines for a people that was

chosen by God to fulfil a certain mission in the wilderness. Read from this point of view,

Winthrop now comes forth as the elected person to lead his people into the barren land of

New England. Winthrop comes across as a Moses figure:

Now if the Lord shall please to heare us, and bring us in peace to the place

wee desire, then hath he ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission,

[and] will expect a strickt performance of the Articles contained in it […]

(Miller 1963 : 198)

For Winthrop it is clear that God had committed himself to lead the settlers into New England.

And, Winthrop claims, if God fulfils this promise, then the covenant between the Puritans and

the Lord will be consolidated. Therefore, the promise that God made functions as one term of

the covenant, viz. the term that God has to meet. The other term, the term that the settlers have

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to fulfil, is also stated by Winthrop: God expects a strict performance of the articles. If the

articles are not strictly ‘performed’, than the covenant will be breached. One cannot deny that

these Puritan articles, guidelines for a people adrift in the wilderness, are strongly reminiscent

of the Ten Commandments. Like those Puritan articles, the Ten Commandments were a set of

laws designed to guide a people through a wilderness full of sin and disobedience. Therefore

God had laid down a set of laws that the Jews had to live by. To breach but one of the laws was

to be cast away from God’s grace. As long as this tenfold law is respected, God will maintain

the covenant. The Ten Commandments were proclaimed during the Exodus at Mount Sinai.

Winthrop now claims that God made a very similar covenant with the Puritans. This covenant

consists, according to the extract above, of two terms, viz. God will lead the settlers into New

England safely and the settlers will strictly obey the articles that God set out for them to obey.

Thus the articles of which Winthrop speaks are the Puritan mirror of the Ten Commandments.

From this a further parallel can be drawn. By summoning the settlers to live according to the

articles, Winthrop himself becomes the Puritan countertype of Moses. The Arbella, the site of

the revelation of the holy laws, parallels Mount Sinai.

The idea of a Moses figure leading the settlers into their secular version of the

promised land was generally accepted among the Puritans. William Stoughton, a second-

generation New England preacher, did not deem it necessary to provide any context or

reasoning that would make a Moses figure among the Puritans acceptable. In his sermon New-

Englands True Interest he boldly states: “We have had Moses and Aaron to lead us”, as if it

were almost self-explicatory.

We now have sufficient arguments to claim that the Puritans were convinced of the

great parallel between their migration to New England and the Exodus of the Jews to Canaan.

First, the Puritans likened England to Egypt on the grounds of England being the site of

spiritual bondage for a chosen people, viz. the Puritans who decided to migrate to New

England. Secondly, the passage to New England was mirrored against the Exodus itself

through the benevolence of God towards the settlers. This divine benevolence was apparent

from the secular parallels of the manna and the splitting of the Red Sea. Thirdly, at the end of

the Puritan passage, still on board of the Arbella, John Winthrop proclaims that the settlers

should live according to the articles, which are Winthrop’s countertype of the Ten

Commandments. And fourthly, the Puritans believed that, like the Jews, they were led by a

Moses figure. Thus, the Puritan migration from England to New England is a double

typology. The Puritans saw their departure as a countertype of Noah’s escape from the Flood

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and the new era for mankind, on the one hand, and as a countertype of the Jews’ Exodus to

the promised land of Canaan, at the other hand.

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4. The National Covenant

4.1. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

In the second chapter we discussed how Noah was able to establish a covenant with

the Lord. After Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man, he was the only one of mankind able to

find grace in the eyes of God: “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with

your seed after you;” (Gen. 9:9). While establishing the covenant, the Lord promises Noah

that his progeny will also be covenanted. Generations later, Abraham, a descendant of Noah,

is covenanted by God, who thereby holds true to his promise to Noah. The covenant between

God and Noah foreshadows the covenant between God and Abraham.

Of God’s covenant with Abraham we read in chapters fifteen and seventeen of the

Book of Genesis:

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy

seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the

river Euphrates:/ (Gen. 15:18)

And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee

exceedingly. (Gen. 17:2)

The Lord’s latter promise to Abraham reminds strongly of the two previous covenants God

established with man. In Gen. 1:22 God says to Adam: “[…] Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill

the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”. Noah is made a similar promise:

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and

replenish the earth.” (Gen. 9:1). Through these promises God expresses his benevolence

towards those men under covenant and assures them that they are in fact divinely covenanted.

It is clear that the divine covenant spans over entire generations.

Isaac, son of Abraham, also entertains a covenant with the Lord:

And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son

Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi. (Gen. 25:11)

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But my covenant will I establish with Isaac […] (Gen. 17:21)

The covenant God made with Abraham now applies also to Abraham’s seed, his son Isaac.

Two generations after the first covenant with Abraham, the covenant is still honoured,

as the son of Isaac, Jacob, is the third generation to be covenanted by God. The covenant with

Jacob is at all times left implicit in the Book of Genesis, but we can deduce the covenant. Like

Adam, Noah and Abraham before, Jacob is promised the following: “And God Almighty

bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of

people;” (Gen. 28:3). The promise is a token of God’s benevolence towards those who are

under a divine covenant. Therefore also Jacob is covenanted by the Lord.

Thus Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are under a covenant with God. Between their

covenant with God and that of Noah entire generations already had passed. Abraham is the

first man since long to be covenanted by the Lord. But the covenants between Noah and the

Lord and Abraham and the Lord are not entirely comparable. Noah’s covenant served to save

mankind from destruction. By finding grace in the eyes of God, Noah managed to find solace

for the whole of mankind. Noah’s covenant is to be situated on the level of mankind. With

Abraham begins the bloodline of the Jews. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are often referred to as

the three patriarchs of the Jewish nation. According to the Book of Genesis, the origins of the

Jewish people can be traced back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This genesis of the Jews is

very perceptibly explained:

And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called

any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.

(Gen. 35:10)

Jacob is renamed Israel by God. In name, Jacob is the nation of Israel. Jacob literally embodies

the whole of the Jewish nation at that point in the Book of Genesis. Just as Adam and Eve,

from whom the entire race of mankind descended, were at some point the sole embodiment of

mankind, Jacob, from whom the entire race of the Jews descended, is the sole embodiment of

the Jews at this point. Jacob is the very first Jew by act of God. That Jacob indeed is the

patriarch of the Jewish nation is even more apparent from Gen. 35:22-2611

11 And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve:/ The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun:/ The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin:/ And

. Jacob had twelve

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sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad

and Asher. From these twelve sons originated twelve tribes: the so-called twelve tribes of

Israel. These tribes were not only of biblical-mythical importance. In secular history, the land

of Israel consisted of these twelve tribes. Ten tribes formed the Northern Kingdom of Israel

and the Southern Kingdom of Judah consisted of the remaining two tribes. The (biblical)

history of the Jews thus takes a beginning with Jacob, who is the patriarch from whom all the

Jews in the world descend. Now it becomes clear how the covenants of Noah (and Adam) and

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob differ from each other. Through his covenant with God, Noah saves

mankind. His covenant is thus to be situated both in the realm of the individual and in the

realm of mankind. Abraham’s, Isaac’s and Jacob’s covenant with God introduce a shift in the

type covenant. The divine covenant no longer applies to mankind but to a people, viz. the

Jewish people. God will no longer be a patron to the entire race of mankind, but narrows his

scope to a specific race. With Abraham, the covenant with mankind shifts into a covenant with

the Jews. The covenant will no longer apply to one individual but to a whole nation. An entire

nation has to meet the terms of the covenant, an entire nation can be cast away from grace, an

entire nation can strive for salvation. This is the National Covenant of the Jewish nation.

The Lord thus makes a division within the ranks of mankind: Jews against gentiles. An

apparent instance of this division we find in the chapters from Exodus that cover the ten

plagues. For instance, about the fourth plague, the relevant passage reads: “And I will put a

division between my people and thy people: to morrow shall this sign be.” (Ex. 8:23). The

ninth plague is the Lord’s slaying of all the firtborns: “[…] that ye may know how that the

LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.” (Ex. 11:7). This blunt partiality

of God towards the Jews is already present in the promises God makes to Abraham and Jacob,

when he makes his covenant with them. God makes the following promise to Abraham:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy

name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:/ And I will bless them that bless

thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the

earth be blessed. (Gen. 12:2,3)

the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali:/ And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padanaram.

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To Jacob God makes a very similar promise:

Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy

brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one

that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee. (Gen. 27:29)

It is clear that God has chosen to side with the Jewish people. His attitude towards the Jewish

people is sheer benevolence. He promises them power, even dominion over other peoples; he

promises them fame and glory.

4.2. The promise of Canaan

The promise which is of utmost importance is the divine promise of Canaan to the

Jews. The land of Canaan is promised to all three patriarchs. Abraham is promised:

And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou

art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I

will be their God. (Gen. 17:8)

Immediately it is clear that the land of Canaan is not promised to Abraham alone, but to his

seed as well. The Lord specifies that the Jews will inherit all the land of Canaan and, more

importantly, that they will have Canaan as an everlasting possession. From the start, this

promise is very unambiguous. God is confident that the promise will be fulfilled.

To Abraham’s son Isaac God promises:

Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto

thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform

the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; (Gen. 26:3)

From his birth Isaac was already promised Canaan, since the land of Canaan was promised to

the seed of Abraham. By deduction, the promise of Canaan will gain a national character, if

Abraham’s bloodline is continued. That Isaac is promised Canaan on the sole ground that

Isaac is Abraham’s son is indeed an indication of the national character of the inheritance of

the promised land. The Jews will inherit Canaan by birthright. Furthermore, God’s partiality

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towards the Jewish people is again stressed. God promises that he will “be with thee, and will

bless thee”.

Finally, also Jacob, son of Isaac, is promised the land of Canaan:

And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to

thy seed after thee will I give the land. (Gen. 35:12)

God stresses once more that the eventual possession of Canaan is a matter of birthright. The

land, which God gave to Abraham and Isaac, he will also give to Jacob. Through this

visualisation of the bloodline the national character of the promise comes forward strongly.

Moreover, Jacob will be renamed Israel and from his twelve sons will descend the twelve

tribes of Israel. Therefore, the promise of the land of Canaan to the three patriarchs becomes a

promise to the nation of Israel. Israel is rightfully the heir of Canaan by act of God. The

Jewish inheritance of Canaan is inevitable. God makes the following promise to Jacob and

thus to the nation of Israel:

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou

goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee,

until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. (Gen. 28:15)

The promise of Canaan shifts from a promise made to the three patriarchs to a promise to the

whole of the Jewish nation. Generations after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the promise is still as

valid as it was in the days of the patriarchs. At the very beginning of the Exodus of the Jews

from Egypt, Moses reminds the Jews of the promise God made to his people:

And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the

Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it

thee,/ (Ex. 13:11)

Taking into account that neither one of the patriarchs is still alive at that time, we can

conclude that the original promise, viz. to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has indeed shifted into a

promise concerning a people.

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But the land of Canaan is not void of inhabitants. It is the land of the Canaanites, the

Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites and the Jebusites (cf. Ex. 13:5). This obliges the Lord to

make another promise:

And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the

Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. (Ex. 23:28)

By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be

increased, and inherit the land. (Ex. 23:30)

The partiality of God towards the Jews now reaches a summit. God is so determined to deliver

his people into Canaan that he is even willing to drive out its original inhabitants. Once more

it is clear that the Jews’ inheritance of Canaan is inevitable.

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5. New England as the New Canaan

5.1. The Puritans’ claim on the National Covenant

In Bible and Sword Barbara Tuchman outlines the bloodline of the Britons (Tuchman

1983 : 13). According to one fable, the British people descended from Brutus, grandson of

Aeneas of Troy, who supposedly gave his name to the isle of Britannia. Another fable puts

Gomer, grandson of Noah and son of Japheth, forward as the patriarch of the English. This

theory of descent was supported by Britain’s first historian, the venerable Bede. Beda

Venerabilis, who had no interest in fables but only in historic facts, claimed that Noah’s ark

stranded on Mount Ararat in the region of Scythia, present-day Armenia. From Scythia came

the Cymbr, who, according to Bede, were the first people to populate the British Isles. During

the Reformation, with the Protestant stress on a literal reading of the Bible, the latter theory

became canonical. The Bible was undoubtedly the highest source of wisdom and the Book of

Genesis was the sole accepted history of the origins of man and of all the peoples that

populate the earth. Thus, especially in Protestant circles, grew the belief that the English

people were descendants of Gomer and of Noah. This belief is illustrated in John Cotton’s

sermon God’s Promise to His Plantation from 1630:

[…] a country though not altogether void of inhabitants, yet void in that

place where they reside. Where there is a vacant place, there is liberty for

the sons of Adam or Noah to come and inhabit […]


The English people cultivated this theory into a widespread and generally accepted belief.

The English descended from Noah and, as a result, also the English claimed a covenant with

the Lord on the grounds of Gen. 9:9: “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and

with your seed after you;”. But the Puritans saw in the calamities of the early seventeenth

century an incongruity with the divine covenant. The national covenant could not possibly be

applied to the nation of England due to its many sins. The Puritan communities within the

English nation were well aware of this. They began to theorize their essential otherness from

the English people. Just as God separated the Jews from other peoples on the grounds of race,

the Puritans began to separate themselves from England, not on the grounds of race, but in

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spirit. The Puritans had to establish that they were an autonomous people within the state of

England and they managed to do so by drawing a parallel between Egypt and England. The

Puritans were in spiritual bondage in England. The divisive factor of race, Jews against

gentiles, now becomes a divisive factor of spirit, Puritans against England. The Puritan

congregation becomes a nation of saints within a nation of sinners. The path this newborn

nation had to follow had already been outlined. First, the saints had to escape their bondage,

just like the Jews escaped Egypt. This logical continuation of the original parallel, i.e. the

parallel of England and Egypt, becomes a parallel itself. By emigrating from England, the

Puritans establish a countertype to the Jews’ Exodus. The final countertype follows logically

from the second countertype. The Jews’ Exodus leads them to the promised land of Canaan.

The Jews are made into a nation by God. It is a process, which started with God’s promise to

Abraham, viz. “And I will make of thee a great nation […]” (Gen. 12:2). The process only

can come to an end with the actual settlement of the Jews in their country of promise, Canaan.

Only then do the people of Israel become a nation. Likewise, the Puritans need a country to

settle in. Only then can they finalize their theory. Only then can they become a nation of

saints instead of a band of saints. Only then can they ultimately establish the parallel between

themselves and the Jews. Only then, finally, can they claim the National Covenant. John

Winthrop cleverly inverts this reasoning:

But in New England the settlement was a deliberate act. The men gathered

together, made a decision, took part only after thought and deliberation.

The greatness of Winthrop’s speech aboard the Arbella, the daring flight

of his imagination, consists precisely in the genius with which he applied

this part of the federal theology to the migration of these new Israelites.

The act of migrating he made one with the taking of the covenant and the

will to leave England he identified with a willing submission to the terms of

a bond.

(Miller 1954 : 477)

Indeed a passage from A Model of Christian Charity reads:

Now if the Lord shall please to heare us, and bring us in peace to the place

wee desire, then hath he ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission

[…] (Miller 1963 : 198)

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Winthrop reasons that if the Lord takes the Puritans safely to New England, it means that the

Puritans have proof of their covenant with the Lord. Winthrop inverts the Jews’ pathway in

the National Covenant. The settlement in Canaan means a finalizing of the National

Covenant for the Jews. It means the end of the divine process of making the Jewish nation.

Winthrop starts his reasoning with the settlement of the Puritans in New England. Through a

series a backward analogies he establishes what the Puritans so eagerly strive for. If God

takes them to New England, the Puritans are under a National Covenant, from which follows

that the Puritans are the countertype of the Jews. Of course, the correct reasoning should be

the following: the Puritans are the countertype of the Jews, therefore they are under a

National Covenant and are brought to the promised land of New England. Winthrop

establishes that the Puritans are the countertype of the Jews through an inverted series of

parallels. Nevertheless, the parallels are there: England is the countertype of Egypt, the

Puritans’ migration is the countertype of the Exodus and New England is the countertype of

Canaan.

That New England was the Puritans’ Canaan was altogether obvious for the settlers.

Thomas Tillam lets his poem Upon the first sight of New England begin with: “Hayle holy-

land wherin our holy Lord/ Hath planted his most true and holy word/ […]” (Heimert &

Delbanco 1985:126). Perhaps more obvious is Thomas Morton’s New Canaan (1635), in

which Morton describes the beauty of the settlers’ promised land. A passage reads:

I will now discover… a country whose endowments are by learned men

allowed to stand in a parallel with the Israelites’ Canaan, which none will

deny to be a land far more excellent than Old England, in her proper

nature…

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985:50)

New England was for the Puritans what Canaan was for the Jews: a land of promise in which a

people would be forged into a nation. With the settlement in this New Canaan the band of

saints could finally claim the National Covenant. A whole nation was now covenanted and as a

nation, the Puritans would now have to strive for divine grace. If they would fail to gain God’s

mercy, the whole nation of saints would be cast off from the covenant. The National Covenant

meant a shift in the concept of the divine covenant. Before the National Covenant with the

Jews, God made a covenant with one exemplum of mankind, Noah. By gaining God’s grace,

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Noah managed to prolong the life of mankind. Mankind’s salvation was thus established by a

sole individual. Later in the Book of Genesis, the entire Jewish people found grace in the eyes

of God. God now no longer sustained mankind through an individual, but through a people. As

long as the Jews managed to retain divine grace, the Lord could not turn against mankind,

because that would include also the Jews. While other peoples could fall from grace – think of

the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah – the Jews had a responsibility: to preserve God’s mercy

and thereby securing mankind’s salvation.

5.2. Wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill: the Puritans’ errand in the wilderness

The Puritans in New England claim the exact same covenant as the Jewish people.

From that claim follows that the Puritans’ responsibility is identical to the Jews’ responsibility.

By preserving God’s grace, the Puritans actually strive to preserve mankind’s existence. This

sacred duty is what Puritan scholars, such as Bercovitch and Miller, refer to as the Puritans’

“errand” (Bercovitch 1978 : 4). This errand is most famously put into words by John Winthrop

in A Model of Christian Charity:

[…] wee shall finde that the God of Israel is among us, when tenn of us shall

be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a

prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord

make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be

as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies off all people are upon us; soe that if wee

shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe

cause him to withdrawe his present help from us […]

(Miller 1963 : 198)

From this very central passage in Winthrop’s sermon, and in the Puritan literature in general,

we can deduce a number of key concepts of the Puritan’s errand. First, it is clear that the

Puritans are convinced that not just God, but the God of Israel is with them. This specification

stresses that God is committing himself exclusively to his people, the new Jews, viz. the

Puritans. The Lord’s agenda is also exclusive: “hee shall make us a prayse and glory”. God

will personally see to the glory of his people. The Puritan settlers are elected to gain a status

superior to all other peoples. They, and only they, are God’s chosen people. This electionism of

the Puritans comes with a responsibility: the eyes of all other peoples are upon them. Since

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they are God’s chosen people, they are an example, a beacon of light for all other peoples.

While the rest of the world is living in sin or led astray by many perils, the Puritans’ task and

goal is to set an example. By living an exemplary life in devout piety, this band of saints hopes

to show other peoples the pathway to salvation. This concept of the exemplary life works in

two ways. On the one hand, by setting an example, the Puritans hope to elevate the sinners into

saints, thereby finally establishing salvation for all people. On the other hand, should this

attempt at elevation fail, their exemplary life in itself should suffice to save mankind from

destruction. As long as the settlers preserve their exemplary role, they keep God’s grace, they

keep themselves away from destruction and continue the race of mankind. One way or another,

the Puritans strive for the salvation of mankind. Thus the double sense of the “City upon a

Hill”-metaphor is the following. New England is a city upon a hill in that it sets an example for

the rest of the world to follow and New England is the city upon a hill to which all the sinful

people cling to for the eventual salvation of mankind.

But the “City upon a Hill”-metaphor can also be read in yet another sense. Not only do

the people of the world carefully watch New England, God himself is watching New England

through a telescope. The Puritans are God’s chosen people, but nevertheless they are on

probation. Therefore the settlers cannot afford a single mistake. Should they loosen the strict

performance of piety, they will become a prey to sin, which is around the corner at all times.

Though they are elect, the Lord can take away his grace if there is reason for it and “withdrawe

his present help from” the Puritans. Like Moses at Mount Sinai, Winthrop is informing his

flock about their essential electionism but also about the pitfalls of their errand:

[…] but if wee shall neglect the observacion of these Articles which are the

ends wee have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to

embrace this present world and prosecute our carnall intencions […], the

Lord will surely breake out in wrathe against us be revenged of such a

periured people and make us knowe the price of the breache of such a

Covenant. (Miller 1963 : 198)

Essentially, Winthrop is warning the Puritans against degeneration. It is not sufficient for the

present generation to live a life in piety in order to keep the covenant. Because the covenant is

a National Covenant, also later generations have to live up to the terms set out by the Lord.

What are exactly the terms that the Puritans have to honour? Winthrop speaks of “these

Articles” several times in his sermon, but he never shares the exact nature of these articles with

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his public. But he does claim that the Puritans’ covenant with the Lord is the means to

fulfilling the Puritans’ errand in the wilderness. Because they are covenanted, they can strive

for salvation for the whole of mankind. Their errand is to remain a City upon a Hill for the rest

of the world, to remain a nation of exemplary piety. As soon as the Puritans loosen this piety,

New England as the City upon a Hill is no longer in effect and the settlers breach the covenant.

We can now draw up a threefold causal relation: the Puritans’ piety triggers the covenant,

which triggers worldwide salvation. Therefore the terms of the National Covenant are simply

to remain pious, or, put in other words, the single term of the covenant is not to breach the

covenant. This is a task that spans entire generations.

In A Model of Christian Charity John Winthrop had warned his flock about the

danger of degeneration. John Cotton warns New England for the very same danger in God’s

Promise to His Plantations:

Fifthly, have a tender care that you look well to the plants that spring from

you, that is, to your children, that they do not degenerate as the Israelites

did; after which they were vexed with afflictions on every hand. […] Your

ancestors were of a noble spirit, but if they suffer their children to

degenerate, to take loose courses, then God will surely pluck you up…


In The American Jeremiad (1978), Sacvan Bercovitch stresses the significance of these two

central sermons in Puritan literature (Bercovitch 1978 : 4). Both Winthrop’s A Model of

Christian Charity (1630) and Cotton’s God’s Promise to His Plantations (1630) closely

foreshadow the major themes of second generation Puritan literature (roughly from the 1650s

onwards). The central concern of the preachers of the second generation in New England is

indeed the widespread presence of sin in the holy land of New England. According to these

second-generation jeremiads the covenant has become very much endangered. The central task

of the second-generation sermons consists in steering the settlers clear from sin and exhorting

the people to show repentance. If the preachers should fail in this task, then salvation for the

Puritans is lost and the covenant surely will be breached. The brilliance of Winthrop’s and

Cotton’s sermon is that they have foreseen this twenty or thirty years beforehand. By warning

their flocks against degeneration Winthrop and Cotton are the prototypes of the second-

generation preacher and their sermons are prototypical of the second-generation jeremiad.

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5.3. Protest against exceptionalism

5.3.1. Roger Williams and Robert Cushman

The Puritan settlers’ self-proclaimed exceptionalism met with protest, both from

within their community and from without. The claim of exceptionalism was received with

disbelief and criticism in Protestant Europe. One who concurred with the Puritans’ claim was

considered nothing but blasphemous (Bercovitch 1978 : 40). This should cause no wonder

once we realise just how marginal the Puritan settlers were in numbers and in thought. Within

the larger Church of Protestantism, the Puritans were but a fraction. Of that fraction only a

small number of Puritans actually made the voyage to New England. The migration consisted

of several separate crossings over the Atlantic Ocean, of which the largest one was the crossing

of seven hundred men and women. Of that small community only a very small band were

deeply convinced of the Puritans’ errand and their exceptionalism. Thus we can situate this

Puritan thought of exceptionalism in the margins of both society and Protestant thought. It

therefore should be no surprise that Protestant Europe considered the Puritan beliefs to be

ridiculous and blasphemous.

Protest against the idea of exceptionalism even came from within the community of

the New England settlers. In a series of lengthy letters to John Cotton, Roger Williams claimed

that the Exodus of the Jews had no bearing with the Puritan migration at all. He argued that the

Old Testament differed from all other histories in that it concerns only sacred history, not

secular history. The settlers could claim that they were a civic nation, but not that they were a

sacred nation of saints, according to Williams (Bercovitch 1978 : 40). Another adversary of

electionist thought from within the Puritan camp was Robert Cushman. In his treatise Reasons

and Considerations touching the Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the Parts of

America (1622), Cushman does away the very foundation of all electionist thought:

[…] whereas God of old did call and summon our fathers by predictions,

dreams, visions […] now there is no such calling to be expected for any

matter whatsoever […]

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Neither is there any land or possession now, like unto the possession which

the Jews had in Canaan, being legally holy and appropriated unto a holy

people […]

Though then there may be reasons to persuade a man to live in this or that

land, yet there cannot be the same reasons which the Jews had, […]

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 42, 43)

All the parallels with the Jewish people, which the Puritans had so eagerly drawn up and

theorized, are attacked by Cushman. Like Roger Williams, Cushman represents the more

rational side of the Puritan settlers. Cushman exposes the alleged parallels between the Puritans

and the Jews for what they really are: they are self-professed. Indeed, the mechanisms behind

the Puritans’ belief in their exceptionalism are premises that the Puritans have proclaimed

themselves and that are nowhere to be found but in Puritan literature. Cushman does not bother

to provide his audience with arguments or a reasoning why New England is not Canaan or why

the Puritans are not the new Israel. And there is no reason why he should, because not he but

the preachers professing electionism should try to convince the gullible public. This simply

means that the belief in exceptionalism depends on how convincing the arguments and, above

all, how convincing the oratory skills of the preachers are. Clearly, Cushman could not be

convinced. Cushman does try to explain why the preachers supply these false arguments: the

Puritans “do seek to give content to the world, in all things they possibly can…” (Heimert &

Delbanco 1985 : 42).

5.3.2. William Bradford and Edward Johnson

Thus a voice of protest against the idea of electionism arose from the non-believers.

But even the believers could not leave the premise of electionism unchallenged. Before and

during the migration, the settlers were promised a land of milk and honey. They would not

only prosper spiritually but also materially. During the decade after the landing in 1630, the

harsh reality caught up with them. This reality of the first years of settlement was objectively

recorded in several histories and tracts. A very important and perhaps the most famous history

of the first years of settlement in the new world is William Bradford’s History of Plimoth

Plantation. Begun in 1630, in the first year of settlement, and finished in 1650, the History of

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Plymouth Plantation is a detailed and extensive document. About the newly explored land

Bradford writes:

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that

cuntrie know them to be sharp and violent, and subjecte to cruell and feirce

stormes […]. Besides, what could they see but a hidious and desolate

wildernes, full of wild beasts and willd men?

(Miller 1963 : 100)

Though the History of Plymouth Plantation is not wholly free of Puritan doctrinal thought, this

objective passage surely serves as a counterweight for the subjectivity of Puritan doctrine

displayed in the sermons. This rare documentation manages to give us a more complete insight

in the reality with which the settlers were confronted. Instead of the expected land of flowing

milk and honey, the settlers faced a harsh and hostile wilderness. This reality could form a

challenge to the doctrinal thought of the Puritans, as the settlers were not given what they were

promised by the preachers. It is not so much Bradford himself who is challenging the

preachers’ promise of the land of milk and honey. It is the objectivity of his report that

describes a reality instead of a utopia that is the challenge for the Puritans’ errand.

William Bradford was not alone in his objective portrayal of the new world. In the

tract Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour (1650) Edward Johnson addresses the same

harsh conditions during the early settlement. Though the title of the tract already gives away

the essential doctrinal nature of the work, still some passages bear witness to Johnson as an

objective portrayer of New England:

[…] where their hands are forced to make way for their bodies passage, and

their feete clambering over the crossed Trees, which when they missed they

sunke into an uncertaine bottome in water, and wade up to the knees,

tumbling sometimes higher and sometimes lower, wearied with this toile,

they at end of this meete with a scorching plaine, yet not so plaine, but that

the ragged Bushes scratch their legs fouly […]

(Miller 1963 : 153)

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Thus this poore people populate this howling Desart, marching manfully on

(the Lord assisting) through the greatest difficulties, and sorest labours that

ever any with such weak means have done…

(Miller 1963 : 156)

Johnson here cleverly uses the reality of the settlers’ predicament to the Puritans’ advantage.

The reality that replaces the promise of a land of milk and honey no longer forms a challenge

to the Puritans’ doctrine. Instead Johnson employs the reality to stress what an exceptional

people the settlers actually are. Johnson claims that despite of the unforeseen conditions, the

pilgrims march manfully on, through the greatest difficulties, and sorest labours. Johnson

inverts the factor of meaning of the harsh reality: instead of being a challenge to

exceptionalism, Johnson uses it as an extra argument to prove the Puritans’ exceptionalism.

Only the true saints that populate New England can cope with these extreme conditions, as

they are strengthened by their faith. This is a fine instance of the great oratory skills the

Puritans had to employ in order to remain true to the doctrine.

5.4. Murmurs in the desert: Peter Bulkeley’s The Gospel Covenant

Peter Bulkeley also used the harsh predicament of the settlers to consolidate the

Puritans’ doctrine of electionism. In his sermon The Gospel-Covenant from 1639, he draws the

parallel between the Puritans’ early settlement and the Jews predicament in the desert before

entering into Canaan. In Numbers 20:4,5 we read:

And why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into this

wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?/ And wherefore have ye

made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? it is no

place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any

water to drink.

After wandering in the desert for forty years in search of the holy land of Canaan, the Jews

have become impatient. They had suffered many calamities and felt that their patience,

endurance and blind faith in God and Moses have not been rewarded. Their cry unto Moses

gives away their desperation. The Jews’ faith in the Lord begins to collapse. The chapter in the

Book of Numbers continues:

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And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,/ Take the rod, and gather thou the

assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock

before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth

to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their

beasts drink./ […] / And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because

ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel,

therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have

given them. (Num. 20:7,8 and Num. 20:12)

This passage perfectly illustrates the Lord’s attitude towards his chosen people. In the Jews’

hour of need God comes to their aid. He provides his people with the necessities in dire straits.

The Jews manage to survive the wilderness through act of God alone. The Jews are still God’s

people and he will not let them suffer. But another predicate of God is revealed. Next to

displaying his benevolence, God is shown to be corrective. He is discontent with his people’s

murmurs and considers this to be blasphemous. The Lord has no intention to ignore the Jews’

lack of faith. For it is faith that will guide the Jews through the wilderness; it is faith that

instigates the Lord to provide for his people. God sees no alternative but to punish his people

for their murmurs. He cannot tolerate that their lack of faith should lead them astray. Therefore

he punishes them by temporarily disregarding his promise of bringing the Jews to Canaan.

Only if the Jews’ faith in God is fully restored, can the Lord fulfil his promise to his people.

Therefore the punishment is not of a vindictive and final nature, but of a corrective and

temporary nature. The punishment is a means to lead the Jews back to the right pathway.

Peter Bulkeley has adopted the above doctrine in his sermon. The harsh reality of life

in New England was not in agreement with the ideas the Puritans had of New England prior to

the landing. They were expecting a land of milk and honey, but got a wilderness instead. The

Puritan preachers now had to find a way to fit this reality into the doctrine of New England

being the promised land. Bulkeley has found a way in which he can incorporate the reality into

the ideal of the promised land. He gratefully makes use of the above idea from the Book of

Numbers. Bulkeley begins his Gospel-Covenant with establishing the parallel between the

settlers’ present conditions in New England and the Jews’ predicament in the desert:

The waters of the river are cut off, and now we begin to be full of cares and

fears, what we shall do. When our means fails us, then our hearts begin to

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fail us; yea, and our faith also; we begin to be out of hope, and so we do as

the Israelites did […], then they quarelled with Moses, Why hast thou

brought us hither? (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 119)

Bulkeley’s analysis is that the lack of material comfort will instigate, or has already instigated,

a lack of faith. But more important than the warning against desperation at material discomfort

that will lead to a loss of faith, is the implication that Bulkeley cleverly conveys. By drawing

the parallel between the Jews’ and the Puritans’ predicament, Bulkeley invokes another

typology between the Jews and the Puritans. The Puritans are in dire straits, not only

materially, but especially spiritually: the discrepancy between the idea of the promised land and

the reality of life in New England posed a threat to the doctrine of New England being the New

Canaan. Bulkeley not only manages to ignore that threat, he even converts that challenge into a

another argument that the Puritan settlers are in fact God’s chosen people by establishing the

above typology. A challenge to the Puritans’ doctrine eventually serves the doctrine very well

through the creativity and resourcefulness of the preachers. Bulkeley continues his sermon by

drawing on the importance of a continued, or renewed, faith in God:

Therefore, though means fail, yet let not our hearts fail. For the faithful God

will not fail us […]

If we could but grow up to more dependence upon him, to live by faith in him

alone, it would be our great advantage: for though means do prove as a

broken reed, or as a false-hearted friend, yet the Lord is faithful, and they

that trust in him are blessed. He will by himself create peace and comfort to

his people. (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 119)

Bulkeley is warning his public not to despair at their present material discomfort, because such

a desperation would instigate a loss of faith in God and his providence. Bulkeley claims that

now, in their hour of need, they should not lose faith but strengthen it. God will provide for his

people, he will not allow them to suffer, as long as they show faith. Eventually the Lord will

reward the settlers for their allegiance and “He turneth a barren land into fruitfulness for his

people” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 120). Bulkeley takes occasion to connect the above idea,

viz. that the settlers should harden their spirit in their hour of need, to the central doctrine of the

Puritans in the first years of settlement, namely the doctrine of the “City upon a Hill”:

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[…] we should in a special manner labor to shine forth in holiness above

other people […]. We are as a city set upon an hill, in the open view of all

the earth; the eyes of the world are upon us because we profess ourselves to

be a people in covenant with God […] (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 120)

5.5. The spiritual fulfilment of New Canaan The mechanisms the Puritans use to maintain the divine covenant do work. Prior to

the landing in 1630 and during the very first years of settlement, New England was portrayed

as the perfect countertype of Canaan, the land of flowing milk and honey. This served their

doctrine very well: the Puritan migration was the secular parallel of the Jews’ Exodus, thus the

new world had to be the New Canaan. It was the paradise the Puritans, after all their sufferings

and calamities in England, rightfully deserved; a paradise in which they could usher in a new

era and establish salvation for the rest of the world, because they were under a covenant. They

were a City upon a Hill. But gradually that paradise-like portrayal of the first years began to

show contingencies. The paradise the settlers had hoped for had become a wilderness. The

material discomfort they experienced and which they could no longer deny, could not possibly

be compatible to the idea of a land of milk and honey any longer. Therefore, the original

doctrine had to be adapted. New England could no longer be portrayed as the oversimplified

Canaan. Instead Bulkeley employs another typology with the Jews’ Exodus. He likens the

Puritans discomfort in the wilderness with the Jews’ discomfort in the desert before the

settlement in Canaan. Thus the early years in New England become a spiritual desert. In this

new doctrine Canaan is not yet reached but it is still within the Puritans’ grasp. Only if they

remain faithful to the Lord in their hour of need, then “He turneth a barren land into

fruitfulness for his people”. Thus the typology of the New Canaan is no longer conceived

materially, but spiritually. If the Puritans show themselves to be faithful towards their God,

then the desert will be turned into a paradise and the Puritans would finally reach Canaan.

This new doctrine is a haven for the preachers. First, if the material discomfort does

not come to an end, the preachers can counter this easily by claiming that the settlers have not

yet shown their faith sufficiently. Secondly, the actual fulfilment of the New Canaan can still

be filled in either materially or spiritually. If the colony starts to prosper materially in the

future, then the preachers can claim they have finally reached Canaan materially. If the colony

does not begin to prosper, the preachers can still claim that Canaan is reached, not materially

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but in spirit. Whether or not the colony will thrive the preachers could not predict. But either

way, their doctrine will manage to answer any possible challenges against electionism.

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6. In stead of holiness Carnality: sin in New England

6.1. The flexibility of the Puritan doctrine

The Puritans saw numerous parallels between their secular history and the biblical

history of the Jews, as conceived in the Books of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers. These

parallels were gathered in a unifying theory, which served to validate a single premise: the

Puritans were the seventeenth century countertype of the Jews. The preachers reasoned that

the many parallels between the settlers’ secular history and the Jews’ holy history were no

coincidence. According to the Puritans the parallels were so explicit that there was only one

conclusion to be made: the Puritan settlers resembled the Jewish people so greatly because

they were God’s chosen people. The obvious parallels were no longer mere parallels but were

made into countertypes: secular versions of the holy history of the Jews.

While outside of the Puritan congregation the Puritan claim of electionism was

received as an outrage and a blasphemy, the Puritans saw their marginal position defended by

their own doctrinal thought. It is important to note on the nature of this Puritan doctrinal

thought. The Puritan doctrine is not a single uniform theory. The doctrine consists of a wide

range of philosophical, historical and theological ideas. Instead of being a univocal theory,

Puritan doctrine is a cacophony of separate theories, ideas and insights. Their sole

commonplace is that the Puritan theorists and preachers employ them to support the typology.

The Puritan doctrine thus comes forward as an intricate network of separate ideas that, more

often than not, have no link between them. But each of the ideas is linked upwards to the

Puritans’ claim of electionism. The link between these separate ideas is thus indirect. The

amalgam only makes sense when presented from the Puritans’ point of view.

A doctrine that consists of several, often divergent, ideas comes with many

advantages. Such a doctrine is highly dynamic and flexible. Because the doctrine is not

univocal, it can be adapted slightly or presented from a different point of view whenever such

would be deemed necessary. A doctrine that is basically an amalgam is hard to challenge or to

prove wrong. If one of the ideas of the doctrine is challenged, the doctrine itself remains out

of range. A supporter of the doctrine can simply ignore the challenge, thereby (temporarily)

renouncing the challenged idea in question. The doctrine would then still be supported by

several other ideas that were not challenged. Renouncing one idea is an acceptable loss and

the doctrine remains untouchable. Another strategy could be to draw on other, unchallenged

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ideas to support the doctrine. One challenged argument can at all times be countered by

several unchallenged arguments. The doctrine itself again remains untouchable and so the

former challenged idea is again countered. If the doctrine remains unchallenged, and the

doctrine supports every idea of which the doctrine consists, then the idea itself cannot be

challenged. The Puritan doctrine thus comes forward as a sort of micro-economy which is

self-protective, self-explicatory and circular in nature.

Because the doctrine is not a uniform entity but a multivocal amalgam, it remains

elusive and vague. This allows supporters of the doctrine, viz. supporters of the Puritans’

electionism, to be resourceful and flexible. At any time a certain selection of arguments

suffices to counter any challenge made to one of the ideas supporting the doctrine. By

presenting the doctrine through a different selection of ideas, the doctrine can be adapted to

whatever form necessary, thus countering every imaginable attack. While still remaining true

to its essential thought, the doctrine shows a great dynamic.

The Puritan doctrine consists of a wide range of ideas and smaller doctrines. The

Puritans certainly employed secular historical and philosophical theories to enrich and

consolidate their doctrine. But the great majority of ideas and smaller doctrines the Puritans

extracted from the Bible. The Bible as utmost important source of ideas surely contributes to

the diversified nature of the Puritan doctrine. The Bible itself is a melting-pot of ideas and

doctrines. Though the Bible should be seen as a uniform body conveying a central idea, it is

still a collection of separate books. Both according to the biblical tradition and to scholarly

research, the Bible has many authors. In an ideal scenario each book would have only one

author, but research has shown that most of the books are a final version, or at least a version,

of a tradition that has been transmitted over several generations and several cultures. The final

product of that tradition, viz. the book that can be found in the Bible, has gone through a long

process of editing and re-editing the original manuscript. The input of so many different

authors cannot but have an effect on the multivocality of the Bible. The Bible itself contains a

wide range of theological and philosophical ideas, making the Holy Word highly flexible.

Protestant reformers were discontented with the position of the Bible in Roman

Catholicism. The Protestants were convinced that the Holy Word was kept away from the

flocks and that, as a result of that, Catholicism was led astray from the basic message of

Christianity. One of the main objectives of the Reformation was to lead the people to the Holy

Word again. Instead of presenting the Bible to the people in Latin, as was customary in

Roman Catholicism, the Protestants began to translate the Bible to their own vulgate. Another

measure was taken in order to bring the masses closer to the Holy Word. The Reformation

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advocated a close and personal reading of the Bible. In the Catholic Church it was the custom

that the Word was presented to the people through a priest. The Protestants saw this as a

further Catholic attempt to keep the people as far away from the Bible as possible. A message

in Latin and presented through the personal view of a priest could not possibly reach its

audience without being altered or misrepresented. By presenting a vernacular version of the

Bible and by stressing a personal reading of the Bible, the Protestant Church tried to abolish

the Roman Catholics’ twofold detour from the Holy Word. The Bible was again the property

of the people and its messages and ideas were presented directly.

The close and personal reading of the Bible led to a status that the Bible could never

reach in Roman Catholicism: the Bible was the highest word. In Protestant circles there was

no greater truth imaginable than an idea conveyed in the Bible. Nowhere else was the Holy

Word as pervasively present as in Protestant communities. Every dispute, whether secular or

religious, could be settled by a simple quote from one of the books of the Bible. Every claim

could gain additional force of conviction if it was accompanied by a biblical quote. The

Protestants, and especially the Puritans, employed this single axiom: whatever can be found in

the Bible is incontestably true. Thus the Puritan doctrine retained a position that was easily

defensible. If a Puritan claim was under attack, it sufficed for the preacher to counter that

attack by a single biblical quotation. Every imaginable challenge to a Puritan idea could be

refuted by biblical quotation. The Bible was for the Puritan preachers an almost inexhaustible

source of quotes and ideas that served to consolidate the position of the Puritan doctrine. As

biblical quotation was the main strategy for defending the doctrine, it should cause no wonder

that the Puritans became veritable scribes, connoisseurs of every Book of the Bible. As long

as the preachers could supply the doctrine with sufficient biblical quotations, the doctrine

could not be substantially challenged from without.

A final note has to be made. The basic nature of doctrine is not one of rationale. A

doctrine is by definition a system of belief. Though a doctrine may be supported by rational

arguments, its base is always an axiom, an irrefutable dogma. Therefore no adversary can

rationally refute the doctrine, as the axiom is a matter of creed and not a fact. Once again, the

doctrine cannot be attacked from the outside. A doctrine cannot be challenged, as the

advocates of that doctrine cannot be persuaded to abandon the doctrine on the basis of ratio.

The danger for a doctrine comes from within the doctrine. Not seldom does a doctrine display

contradictions or discontinuities. The most substantial challenge of the doctrine thus comes

from the doctrine itself. Through possible contradictions and discontinuities the doctrine

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becomes incredible and unsustainable. Consequently the doctrine is abandoned from within,

as the dogmatic axiom can no longer be supported.

6.2. The era of corruption

From the landing in 1630 to the 1650s the Puritans were employing the National

Covenant as the mainstay of their doctrine. They saw their migration to the New World as an

errand that ideally would affect the whole of mankind. The Puritans’ New England was the

City upon a Hill for the rest of the world. The exemplary piety of the Puritans would not only

inspire the world to follow in their footsteps, it would by itself suffice to establish salvation

for humanity. This placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of the Puritan pilgrims. At no

point could they afford to loosen their strict vestment of piety. If only one member of their

Church indulged in any form of sin, the National Covenant would irretrievably be lost. It will

become obvious that this self-proclaimed errand would soon prove to be unattainable. The

Puritans will inevitably fall victim to their own doctrine from the 1650s onwards.

The downfall of the perfect Puritan piety in the 1650s finds its prelude in a smaller

doctrine that supports the larger doctrine of the National Covenant. The new era of the

Puritans’ National Covenant was seen in the light of the theory that all of history was cyclical

(Miller 1967 : 465). Periods of reform were inevitably followed by periods of corruption. The

Puritans reasoned that the Reformation was the onset of a period of reform, but that the

reform could not be fulfilled in a corrupt Europe. Hence, they saw the migration to New

England, a virgin country devoid of sin, as the culmination of that period of reform. Already

from the landing in 1630, the Puritans thus had set a trap for themselves. As the summit of

reform has been reached upon the arrival in New England, inevitably the cycle of history was

set on a slope downhill again. The Puritans knew perfectly well that the fulfilment of reform

walked hand in hand with the start of corruption. As the pilgrims set foot on the new

continent, the period of corruption was already ushered in. The very doctrine that made the

National Covenant possible would also be the downfall of the National Covenant. A period of

corruption in New England will introduce sin in the virgin lands and would end the National

Covenant. The Puritans were victimised by their own doctrine. The Puritans’ errand was from

the beginning doomed to fail as, after the settling in 1630, there was only the prospect of

decline.

According to William Bradford, little more than ten years after the landing the first

signs of corruption were already beginning to show. Bradford wrote his History of Plymouth

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Plantation as a fairly detailed journal, covering the years between 1630 to 1650. An entry

from the year 1642 reads:

Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some kind of wickednes did

grow and breake forth here, in a land wher the same was so much witnesed

against, and so narrowly looked unto, and so severly punished when it was

knowne […] And yet all this could not suppress the breaking out of sundrie

notorious sins, […] espetially drunkenness and unclainnes; […] even

sodomie and bugerie have broak forth in this land, oftener then once.

(Miller 1963 : 111, 112)

Michael Wigglesworth’s poem God’s Controversy with New-England (1662) also elaborates

on the many sins that are to be found in New England in the mid seventeenth century. In his

poem he lets God address his people, his saints that he no longer recognises:

If these be they, how is it that I find

In stead of holiness Carnality,

In stead of heavenly frames an Earthly mind,

For burning zeal luke-warm Indifferency,

For flaming love, key-cold Dead-heartedness,

For temperance (in meat, and drinke, and cloaths) excess?

Whence cometh it, that Pride, and Luxurie,

Debate, Deceit, Contention, and Strife,

False-dealing, Covetousness, Hypocrisie

(With such like Crimes) amongst them are so rife,

That one of them doth over-reach another?

And that an honest man can hardly trust his Brother?

(Miller 1963 : 612, 613)

Except for the sin of excess, Wigglesworth furnishes the sins with capital letters as if to stress

that the Puritan settlers have committed capital sins. Furthermore the capital letters of the sins

contrast sharply with the virtues they collide with. Left in small print, the virtues appear to

come out of the comparison with the sins as the injured party. The capital sins have conquered

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the virtues. The virtues do not matter anymore as the sins have grown larger in importance in

the eyes of God. God no longer recognises his chosen people. From this follows that the

Puritans have failed to meet their self-imposed strict practice of piety. The settlers’ errand in

the wilderness is bound to fail and the National Covenant will be lost irretrievably as the

saints did not manage to keep New England void of sin.

6.3. Adapting the doctrine: mitigation for the New England sinners

The outlook for the Puritans was not at all bright. John Winthrop, in his Model of

Christian Charity (1630), had already predicted with great certainty the outcome of such a

degeneration into sin: “the Lord will surely breake out in wrathe against us […] and make us

knowe the price of the breache of such a Covenant.” (Miller 1963 : 198). As uncompromising

this forewarning might be, as soon as sin has actually pervaded the New England

congregations, all of a sudden there is room for temperance and moderation. If the Puritan

preachers would have consequently followed through their own conviction, i.e. the

uncompromising conviction of a decade earlier as formulated by Winthrop, one would expect

a veritable castigation of sin and sinners. Instead of castigation and abhorrence, we find

modest acceptance and understanding. After elaborating on the sins that have pervaded New

England, Bradford immediately reduces the magnitude and importance of this occurrence of

sin in New England:

[…] hear is not more evils in this kind, nor nothing nere so many by

proportion, as in other places; but they are here more discoverd and seen,

and made publick by due serch, inquisition, and due punishment; for the

churches looke narrowly to their members […]

(Bradford 1963 : 112)

Bradford reasons that the City upon a Hill that is New England employs different parameters

towards sin than the rest of the world. Even the slightest occurrence of sin in New England is

“brought into the light, and set in the plaine field, or rather on a hill […]” ( Miller 1963 : 112).

Because New England is the beacon of piety closely watched by the entire world, any form of

sin could never go unnoticed. Whereas in the rest of the world sin has already become

commonplace, in New England it has become subject to scrutiny. By clinging to the Puritans’

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doctrine of the City upon a Hill, Bradford manages to diminish the gravity of sin in New

England.

This is a fine instance of the flexibility and the multivocality of the Puritans’ doctrine.

By the introduction of sin in New England, the doctrine of the National Covenant is

endangered. The blow to the doctrine is softened, however, by another doctrine, viz. that of

the City upon a Hill. Whereas the City upon a Hill originally represented a flawless beacon of

piety, its meaning has somewhat shifted in the instance Bradford uses it in. Instead of the

beacon of hope that is closely watched, the City upon a Hill has now become the mere site

that is under the magnifying-glass. The connotation of ‘a beacon of hope’ is temporarily

omitted from the definition of the City upon a Hill. Any site that is subject to scrutiny sooner

or later will show signs of imperfection. The Puritans now have to acknowledge that they

form no exception to this rule. The City upon a Hill now becomes a defensive mechanism.

Bradford seemingly wants to convey a message to the rest of the world: even the saints in

New England are only human and are bound to make mistakes sooner or later. The ingenuity

of this shift in meaning of the City upon a Hill must not be attributed to Bradford, however.

John Winthrop already fitted the doctrine with the double connotation:

[…] for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies

of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in

this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present

helpe from us […]

(From A Model of Christian Charity; Miller 1963 : 199)

Bradford gratefully exploits this double standard, thereby trying to convey that New England

handles a different set of parameters towards sin that cannot be likened with the attitude

towards sin in the rest of the world.

Having diminished the magnitude of sin in New England, Bradford also tries to shed

some forgiving light over the New England sinner. According to Bradford, the New England

sinner is lured into sin by an external power:

[…] that the Divell may carrie a greater spite against the churches of Christ

and the gospell hear, by how much the more they endeaour to preserve

holynes and puritie amongst them […]

(Miller 1963 : 112)

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Resisting temptation to sin had always been a matter of self-control, or mutual control within

the congregation. The New England saint was responsible himself whether he would walk

into the pitfall of sin. The lure of sin was a matter that remained within the realm of the spirit.

When it became apparent that sin had made its entrance into the New England congregations,

all of a sudden sin and the temptation to sin were attributed to an external force, the Devil. By

casting the blame on a force beyond the control of the individual, Bradford more or less

acquits the Puritans of their sins. The implicit message Bradford wants to convey is that the

New England saints may be more virtuous than other peoples, yet they obviously cannot fight

a force as malevolent as the Devil. Thus Bradford acquits the New England sinners partly,

while at the same time he even manages to praise the saints. Bradford claims that the Devil

has lured the Puritans into sin because he felt threatened by their exemplary piety. The Devil

“carries a greater spite” towards New England than he does towards the rest of mankind.

Surely the Puritans would have been solaced by this thought, because of the implication it

carries: New England was or still is a beacon of piety, a threat towards the Devil himself.

Thus an addition has been made to the Puritan doctrine: an external force that

supersedes the individual power of will. Though new to the Puritan doctrine, the idea of a

malevolent force of temptation is not new to the Christian doctrine. Adam and Eve fell victim

to a very similar force. It was the serpent that caused them to sin in the Garden of Eden. Man

may display enough power of will to control himself and his fellow man, against a devilish

force he remains powerless.

Bradford continues to draw attention to a devilish presence in the New World.

Bradford concludes that apparently Satan has more power in New England than the Puritans

could have possibly imagined: “Satane hath more power in these heathen lands” (Miller 1963

: 112). In the earlier Puritan doctrine the New World embodied a virgin land, a world

unspoiled by human presence and thus not yet tainted with sin. This virginal perception of

New England fitted perfectly in the Puritan doctrine. Only in a land devoid of sin, could a new

era of salvation be reached. But since the settlers’ errand proved to be fallible, the virtuous

denotation of the New World could no longer be maintained. New England itself also had to

serve as a scapegoat for the Puritans’ failure in their errand. The new continent no longer was

perceived as a virgin land but as a heathen land. Of course the idea of the heathen land served

the Puritans well to safeguard themselves against their own failure. The Lord could not

possibly allow the completion of salvation in a land that is infested with heathens, viz. the

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Native Americans12

. As long as the entire continent is not Christianised, Satan will maintain

his reign over these lands, sin will continue to thrive and the Puritan saints will be lured into

sin. Bradford eagerly draws on these three mitigating circumstances for the sinful Puritans. By

diminishing the magnitude of sin in New England and by identifying Satan as the malevolent

force responsible for tempting the saints to sin, Bradford casts a merciful perspective on the

New England sinners.

6.4. If we be not sleeping, yet are we not slumbering?

Thomas Shepard also provides a framework for the presence of sin in New England.

Shepard’s theological framework displays more rationale than Bradford’s framework. In

Shepard’s The Parable of the Ten Virgins (commenced in 1636 and finished in 1640) we read:

[…] but New England’s peace and plenty means breeds strange security;

and hence prayer is neglected here. There are no enemies to hunt you to

heaven, nor chains to make you cry, hence the gospel and Christ in it is

slighted.


In this passage Shepard quite correctly notes that times of prosperity induce a dangerous

climate of satisfaction. The second-generation Puritans lack a catalyst for salvation thinking. In

dire straits man is inclined to project hope for better times in the future. Such catalysts the first

generation of settlers did have. The religious and political situation in England encouraged

these settlers to envision any form of salvation in the near future. If Old England had been

satisfactory for the Puritans to thrive in, then any need for escape or salvation would have been

absent and superfluous. Hence, the religious and political predicament of the Puritans in

England served as a catalyst for salvation thinking. In New England, ten years after the

landing, the settlers have finally managed to achieve satisfying prosperity. The tolerant

religious and political climate that the Puritans had longed for in England, is ultimately reached

in New England. Shepard notes that herein lays the danger for the Puritans. Ten years of

prosperity have bred a treacherous atmosphere of comfort. Instead of the actual Puritans’

errand, viz. to establish salvation for all of mankind through an exemplary piety, a false goal

12 Cf. chapter 8.3.3. The Antichrist

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has been reached. The Puritans had achieved the times of prosperity they needed as a means to

fulfil their errand. But the pitfall the Puritans have walked into is that they have confused the

errand with the means. Hence Shepard claims that there is a false sentiment of security and

satisfaction amongst the Puritan settlers. And the real danger lies ahead, according to Shepard.

This erroneous sentiment of the goal that has been reached will inevitably obstruct the Puritans

to fulfil their actual errand. The false atmosphere of satisfaction will entail a gross negligence

towards sin. The Puritans are in the process of weakening their bulwark against sin, thereby

bringing about themselves the failure of their errand. Shepard claims that the Puritan saints fell

asleep: “[…] if we be not sleeping, yet are we not slumbering?” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 :

173). The preacher sees it as his sacred duty to wake his flock again and reset the goal they

have been led astray from. Thomas Shepard reasons that the times of prosperity have triggered

the Puritans to neglect their errand, which will bring about a failure of that errand. Shepard’s

reasoning is fully in accordance with the Puritans’ theory of a cyclical course of history. That

theory states that a period of reform is inescapably followed by a period of corruption. Shepard

adds to this theory a chain of causality. The period of reform is the direct cause for the period

of corruption.

6.5. The second-generation backsliders

As stated earlier, the Puritan saints were well aware that the period of corruption was

around the corner, as soon as the climax of reform had taken place in New England. That, only

decades after the first landing in 1630, the first signs of sin in New England were already

beginning to show did not come as a surprise to the Puritans. In fact, already in 1630, John

Winthrop and John Cotton had warned their flocks of this inherent condition of the Puritans’

errand. In his A Model of Christian Charity Winthrop had insightfully warned his public to

maintain a strict performance of the ‘Articles’, even before the actual landing, on board the

Arbella:

[God] will expect a strickt performance of the Articles contained in it, but if

wee shall neglect the observacion of these Articles which are the ends wee

have propounded, and dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this

present world and prosecute our carnall intecions […]

(Miller 1963 : 198)

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Also in 1630, in God’s Promise to His Plantations, John Cotton warns the New England

congregations of the danger that lies ahead. Cotton even precisely defines that danger:

Fifthly, have a tender care that you look well to the plants that spring from

you, that is, to your children, that they do not degenerate as the Israelites

did; after which they were vexed with afflictions on every hand. How came

this to pass? Jeremiah 2:21, I planted them a noble vine, holy, a right seed,

how then art thou degenerate into a strange vine before me? Your ancestors

were of a noble spirit, but if they suffer their children to degenerate, to take

loose courses, then God will surely pluck you up…


According to Cotton, his public from 1630 must not allow their sons and daughters to

deteriorate. For it is not the first generation of settlers, but the second generation that will

become prey to sin. While the first generation, “a noble vine, holy, a right seed”, may live

their lives in virtue, the failure of the errand will not be brought about by that first generation,

but by their seed. The second generation never did experience the adversity their parents met

with in England. It is the second generation that has forgotten the original errand; it is the

second generation that is slowly deteriorating into sin; it is the second generation that will

bring about the eventual breach of the divine covenant. Winthrop and Cotton not only did

forecast a possible outcome of the settlers’ errand, in doing so, they are also prefiguring the

preachers of the second generation. Winthrop and Cotton were the first, and the only ones in

their generation, to advocate a strict performance of piety in order to prevent the Lord’s wrath,

which is the major, if not the only, theme in the second-generation preaches and sermons.

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7. Jeremiah and the Covenant of Grace

7.1. The glorious kingdoms of David and Solomon

The doctrine of the National Covenant was no longer tenable for the Puritans. The

saints had fallen victim to their own strict doctrine. The National Covenant could only be

maintained as long as the Puritan congregations were devoid of sin. The covenant would be

breached as soon as only one individual of the congregation showed deficiency in piety. Only

one instance of sin would suffice to deprive a whole community of its exceptional covenant

with the Lord. This term of the National Covenant soon showed to be impossible to satisfy.

Already ten years after the arrival in New England, the pervasion of sin into the Puritan

congregations could no longer be denied or neglected. The Puritans had failed to meet with

their self-imposed requirements and thus they had failed to preserve the covenant.

Thus far the Puritans had followed in the footsteps of Israel in the pathway to

salvation. The Puritans constructed a doctrine that would allow to identify themselves as the

seventeenth century countertype of the Jewish Nation. Numerous self-proclaimed parallels

between the Puritans and the Jews were brought into the scheme that would establish this

identification. The ultimate goal for the Puritan emigrants was to give an eschatological

meaning to the Puritans’ migration. Puritan preachers claimed New England as the

countertype of Canaan. For the Jewish nation Canaan was the promised land in which their

long promised reign would finally commence. Salvation for the Jewish nation, before and

during Canaan, was to be fulfilled materially. God had promised Abraham that his seed would

one day be forged into a powerful nation. After years and years of trail and affliction the

original promise to Abraham finally was fulfilled: the Jews were made into a powerful nation.

This is where history and myth touch. Around 1010 BC King David arose to the throne of

Israel (Praet 2005 : 1). He was succeeded by King Salomon, who reigned from 970 BC to 924

BC. Under the reign of these kings the Twelve Tribes of Israel were united and the glorious

era, which was of old promised to the Jews, was ultimately ushered in. After centuries of

political and military insignificance, Israel now faced a period of independence, prosperity

and even political dominance that would last long into the eighth century BC.

This obtainment of the glorious kingdom was the final step and the ultimate goal in the

process towards salvation. The Puritan doctrine had allowed the Puritans to identify

themselves as the countertype of the Jewish nation and New England as Canaan. For the

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Puritans to completely re-enact the full process of salvation of Israel, it was obvious which

further stage needed to be reached. In New England the period of reform would have to reach

a culmination point. The final step in completing the process of salvation would be that a

glorious kingdom will be established in New England. The whole eschatology of the Puritans’

migration was oriented towards this final, material completion of a long pathway. Salvation

itself coincided with the obtainment of the glorious kingdom within the whole framework of

the National Covenant. The doctrine of the National Covenant had brought them to New

England as the legitimate successors of Israel and was devised to lead them directly towards

the completion of the process of salvation.

However, the summit of reform never ushered in the start of a glorious kingdom. The

process towards salvation never reached its ultimate goal, salvation itself through that earthly

kingdom, for the Puritans. Proven untenable, the doctrine of the National Covenant ceased to

form the pathway to salvation for the Puritan settlers. In their search for attributing

eschatological valour to New England and to their departure from England, the Puritans could

no longer cling onto the framework of the National Covenant. New England proved to be

failing the definition as a countertype of Canaan. The Puritan preachers would have to find a

new pathway to salvation, New England and the Puritan communities within would have to be

redefined, new goals had to be set. A whole new framework would have to be brought into

existence if the Puritans still had any ambition of maintaining their established status of being

the countertype of the Jewish nation.

7.2. The Babylonian Exile

Immediately after the National Covenant showed signs of fallibility amongst the

Puritans, a new framework of salvation was constructed. The Puritan preachers were defeated

by their own unsustainable doctrine. They had to acknowledge that the New England

communities fell short attaining to secularly copy the kingdom of Israel under King David

and King Solomon. Thus the preachers saw themselves obliged to abandon the National

Covenant. However, they maintained to employ the axiom that lay at the foundation of the

doctrine of the National Covenant. The Puritans never abandoned the idea that they were

God’s chosen people, the secular seventeenth century countertype of the Jewish people. That

the settlers could not establish New England as the countertype of the kingdom of David and

Solomon was never a substantial threat to that axiom. This particular failure to follow in the

footsteps of Israel was pushed aside as a minor ‘accident de parcours’, maybe even a

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miscalculation. According to the Puritans the evidence that they were God’s chosen people

was not only overwhelming, it was even unchallengeable. It was not the axiom that was now

challenged but it was the framework the Puritans employed that proved to be inadequate.

Instead of recognising the failure of achieving the glorious kingdom, the Puritan preachers

simply omitted this phase in Jewish history from their adaptation.

After the reign of King Solomon, the Twelve Tribes of Israel were divided into two

kingdoms (Praet 2005 : 2). Ten tribes formed the Northern Kingdom of Israel, with Samaria

as its capital, and the remaining two tribes constituted the Southern Kingdom of Judah, with

the city of Jerusalem as the capital. After the two decades of political independence and even

domination, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was invaded by Assyrian forces in 722 BC. The

people of these northern tribes were brought away into exile in Mesopotamia. Still

independent, the people of Judah started to accuse the northern tribes of having interbred

ethnically with the Assyrians and of abandoning and betraying their religious tradition.

According to the Judeans, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel could no longer claim

a veritable status of being true Israelites. That status of being God’s true chosen people was

now only reserved for the people of Judah. But the Southern Kingdom of Judah could not

maintain its independence much longer than the Northern Kingdom. In 586 BC, a date of

huge historical and symbolical importance for any true Jew, the Kingdom of Judah was

conquered by the Babylonians under the infamous Nebuchadnessar. The Judeans now faced

the same fate of the northern peoples: exile. Though the great Babylonian Exile lasted only

fifty years, its impact on the Jewish people, and on Judaism is general, cannot be

underestimated. The Babylonian Exile was the catalyst of so-called post-exilic Jewish

thinking (Praet 2005 : 2). It triggered a future projection of salvation and a moral and religious

restoration.

7.3. The Book of Jeremiah

The instigators of this salvation thinking in the Babylonian Exile were the prophets.

Among those prophets, the one with the largest importance was Jeremiah. Basically a

patchwork of a wide range of texts and passages, the Book of Jeremiah contains a number of

ideas and concepts of huge importance for the theologies of Judaism and Christianity. The

following selection of verses will reveal the most significant concepts from Jeremiah’s

agenda.

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7.3.1. The Babylonian Exile as divine corrective punishment

Jeremiah, along with the general tendency in Judaist thinking, claims that the

Babylonian Exile is to be seen as a divine punishment. After the division of Israel into two

kingdoms, the Jews were headed for the worse. The glorious era was abruptly ended and once

again Israel was dominated by foreign forces. Jeremiah professes the downfall of Israel as an

act of a God who is utterly disappointed in his chosen people. Jeremiah, in his status of

holding an intermediary function between the Lord and the people of Israel, asks God what

the Israelites did to deserve such harsh affliction. The Lord, through Jeremiah, answers:

Then shalt thou say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken me,

saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served

them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not

kept my law;

(Jer. 16:11)

The people of Israel have broken the First Commandment of Mosaic Law, as laid down at

Mount Sinai: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Ex. 20:3). The holy Mosaic Law

has been breached, which inevitably implies a breach of the National Covenant. Hence, the

Jewish people have become a people adrift. No longer could the Jews enjoy the shelter that

their God had provided for them. Deprived of divine guidance, the Jewish nation soon fell

into sin. The Lord can barely hide his contempt and disgust for the Jewish people: “And I

brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but

when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.” (Jer. 2:7).

The Lord has once again been betrayed by the covenanted man. Just like mankind was

penalized for Adam’s Original Sin, God is now seeking just punishment for the backsliders

who betrayed the Lord’s trust. In the verses of Jer. 5:15 –17 God makes a threat towards his

sinful people:

Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, […]/

[…]/And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons

and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine

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herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish

thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.

In times of Israel being politically and military insignificant, the threat to send a foreign

powerful nation upon the Israelites almost equals a death threat. Israel had already been

overthrown once and the weak nation would not be able to sustain another attack. Utter

destruction by the hands of the Lord seems nigh for the people of Israel. But the Lord

continues: “Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you.”

(Jer. 5:18). Though God deems that a punishment is necessary for the backsliding people –

after all he does not speak these verses in vain – he makes it clear that this punishment will

not be totally destructive. The affliction the Lord has laid down and will continue to lay down

on the Jewish nation proves not be vindictive. The affliction that Israel has to suffer is

corrective in nature. Israel’s retribution functions as a divine instrument of purification. In an

ideal scenario the Jewish sinners will be purified of their sins by this corrective period of

affliction and God would again be able to see Israel fit for divine benevolence:

And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will

return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every

man to his heritage, and every man to his land.

(Jer. 12:15)

The period of affliction is a means of purification, however, not the purification itself. The

Lord intended this affliction to make the Jews realise the error of their current ways. Once the

sinful Israelites realise this, they must themselves correct their sinful behaviour. Through

affliction, the Jews must find piety and virtue again. Jeremiah sees it as his prophetic duty to

summon his flock back to virtue. The quintessential message throughout the Book of

Jeremiah is the need for repentance. If only the Jews would repent their sins, God will open

the gateway to salvation again: “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your

backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.” (Jer. 3:22).

Repentance is the only pathway to salvation for the Jews. Should they fail to repent, then their

fate is sealed: “But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith

the LORD.” (Jer. 12:17).

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7.3.2. Post-exhilic salvation

7.3.2.1. Turn, O backsliding children : a new Covenant for the Jews

As stated earlier, the Babylonian Exile, during which Jeremiah was active as a

prophet, functioned as a catalyst for salvation thinking. Thus throughout the Book of Jeremiah

there is a strong tendency for a hopeful prospect. God is willing to acknowledge his chosen

people again if they abide to the one term he has put forward, viz. a repentance of their sins. A

return to virtue will coincide with a return to the Lord and a restatement of the Jews as the

chosen people with all its implications. The verses of Jer. 3:14 read: “Turn, O backsliding

children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and

two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion”. There is an important remark to be made on

this verse. God had dissolved the National Covenant as a result of the Jews’ breaching of the

Mosaic Law. Yet in the above verse the Lord claims himself that he is ‘married unto you’.

Though the National Covenant is no longer in effect, apparently there is still some holy

bondage between God and Israel. The breach of the National Covenant did not lead to God’s

abandonment of his chosen people. Also, the fact that God no longer recognises his people

does not imply that Israel has actually lost its privileged status. The Jews did lose divine

guidance in their times of trial, but never did God intend to forsake Israel. Thus the period of

affliction can be ultimately understood as temporary. The trial offers the Jews an occasion to

try and prove themselves worthy again of divine guidance and protection. If Israel manages to

prove its worthiness, by showing enough repentance, the Lord will embark on a new covenant

with the Jews. The Babylonian Exile as a time of trial thus functions as an intermediary

purification in between two, altogether very different, covenants between Israel and the Lord.

On the one hand, the affliction will purify the sinners of Israel so that they can be covenanted

again. On the other hand, the Babylonian Exile allows God to re-invent and re-define the

covenant he had earlier made with the people of Israel. In a very important passage in the

Book of Jeremiah, in the substructured Book of Consolation, God speaks of this new

covenant:

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:/ Not according to the

covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the

hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake,

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although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:/ But this shall be the

covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the

LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts;

and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

(Jer. 31:31-33)

God stresses that the new covenant differs essentially from the old covenant, viz. the National

Covenant. The national Covenant was based on an outward compliance of several terms. The

Jews had to honour the national Covenant by complying with Mosaic Law. If only one of those

Ten Commandments was broken, the National Covenant would be breached. This outward

performance of obedience to the covenant’s terms was mirrored in an outward reward. If the

Jews obeyed the Mosaic Law, then the Lord would take them to Canaan, an actual, physical

stretch of land. The National Covenant thus employs the following premise: an outward

performance of virtue is met with a material reward in this earthly life. The new covenant parts

with this definition. God resolves that he ‘will put my law in their inward parts’. The outward

performance of virtue is replaced by an inward feeling of piety. God will no longer bestow his

mercy upon those who outwardly meet with his requirements. The elect will no longer have to

perform piety, they will have to be pious, which implies an absence of parameters by which the

virtue of the individual is measured. There is no longer a law13

that has to be conformed to.

Divine grace now becomes a matter of the inward spirit instead of a matter of an outward

performance. Every man has to decide for himself whether or not he encompasses this inner

piety. More than in the National Covenant, salvation is reached individually. Under the

National Covenant, an entire nation could be cast off from grace if only one member of the

community had fallen into sin. This is not the case with the new covenant. Virtue is

individually rewarded, just as sin is individually punished.

7.3.2.2. Some general tendencies in Christian theology

The development of retribution in the theology of Christianity is exemplary for the

more general development of salvation thinking in Christianity. In Christian theology the

concept of retribution has undergone a process that can be divided in three phases (Gelin &

Van der Paal 1962 : 65). The first conception of vindication was collective and temporal-

13 Note that God still speaks of a law that he will ‘write in their hearts’ (Jer. 31:33). We find that this can simply be put aside as a poor choice of words on the part of Jeremiah.

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material retribution. An instance of this sort of retribution we find in the Book of Numbers.

During the Jews’ wanderings in the Desert, the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan, there was an

uprising against Moses. Discontented with their predicament in the Desert of Sinai, members

of the Houses of Levi and Ruben started to rebel. Of the retribution for this rebellion can be

read in Numbers 16:32: “And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their

houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.”. God deemed death

as the fit punishment, not only for the rebels themselves, but for their kin and progeny also.

The retribution is thus collective - as not only the sinners but also their kin is punished -,

temporal - the retribution comes in the earthly life -, and material – the punishment is death. In

the next phase in the process of vindication in Christianity, retribution is no longer collective.

Every sinner is punished individually, as we read in Ezekiel 18:30: “Therefore I will judge you,

O house of Israel, every one according to his ways […]”. The punishment is still conceived as

material and temporal: a sinner will still be penalized by physical affliction. The third and final

conception of divine vindication is marked by individuality and spirituality. Sin is no longer

punished in this life but in the next. Retribution is awaiting in the afterlife, in purgatory or in

hell. This is the conception of vindication that Christianity is still professing this day.

This process of retribution in Christianity is a mirror for the process that the concept of

salvation had gone through in the Old Testament. Before the Babylonian Exile salvation was

conceived by the following scheme. Abraham was promised a material reward, the holy land of

Canaan. The promise to Abraham was expanded to his seed, the people of Israel. Israel was

covenanted by the Lord. The National Covenant functioned as a mutual obligation, as a law

that was to be performed: God obliged himself to bring his people to Canaan if Israel honoured

the Mosaic Law. Salvation was finally reached in the kingdom of King David and King

Solomon, as the Lord’s promise to Abraham – Gen. 17:16: “And I will make thee exceeding

fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.” – was ultimately

fulfilled.

The Babylonian Exile instigated a new wave of salvation thinking. The National

Covenant was breached and the defining elements of that covenant, viz. material, temporal and

collective salvation, had to be adapted. A new covenant, which we shall henceforth call the

Covenant of Grace, was designed by the Lord to lead men towards salvation. The material

promise to Abraham became a spiritual promise: if man lives a good life devoid of sin, he will

be rewarded in heaven. The pathway to salvation was defined by the Covenant of Grace. The

covenant as a law that had to be performed now became a personal, individual and spiritual

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bondage between God and man. The ultimate salvation transgressed from a material and

temporal kingdom towards a kingdom of heaven.

7.4. The Covenant of Grace

The Puritans in New England had suffered a breach in their adaptation of the National

Covenant. They were now looking for a new framework that would redeem them of their sins

and again lead them to salvation. It was altogether very obvious for the New England saints

which framework they needed to apply to themselves in order to justify, or re-justify, their

sacred errand in the wilderness. The preachers of the second generation of settlers committed

themselves to the Book of Jeremiah and the Covenant of Grace. Just like with the National

Covenant of the Jews, the framework was already there. The preachers just needed to theorize

the application to Puritan congregations in the seventeenth century. As the Puritans had long

since established themselves as the countertype of Israel, this task was not at all inconceivable.

Their strategy remained unaltered: to follow in Israel’s footsteps. But the Puritans’ application

of the Covenant of Grace differs in an important way from the Puritans’ application of the

National Covenant. In order to claim the National Covenant the Puritans needed to seek

justification. They had to supply satisfying arguments to prove that they could rightfully be

seen as the seventeenth century countertype of Israel. The Puritans’ application of the

Covenant of Grace needs not be justified by such convincing arguments, as the Covenant of

Grace follows naturally from the National Covenant. The Puritans simply continued to follow

in Israel’s footsteps and the Covenant of Grace is only the next logical step in the process

towards salvation that has already been drawn out by Israel. Thus, without much effort, the

Puritans had provided themselves with the new framework that was needed so much.

7.4.1. The Covenant of Grace as the Puritan answer to Arminianism and Antinomianism

Not only does the Covenant of Grace offer a solution to the problem of collective sin

within the National Covenant, it also provides an escape for some fundamental attacks on the

National Covenant’s concept of electionism. Challenges of electionism came from without the

Protestant camp for the larger part14

14 Cf. chapter 5.3. Protest of against electionism

. But the most fundamental critique on the notion of

electionism is to be found within Protestantism. The Puritans felt particularly threatened by

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two specific movements: Arminianism and Antinomianism (Miller 1954 : 367). Arminianism

is a theology developed in Holland by Jacob Arminius that departs essentially from basic

Calvinistic ideas such as predestination and free will. According to Arminius, election was

based on predestination and the act of God alone. If one was out of God’s grace, there was no

possibility of gaining the status of being elect. The danger of Arminianism for the Puritans laid

in the following conclusion: if one is not elect, why should one strive for salvation? Why

should anyone who has fallen out of God’s grace try to live a pious life? Why should he not

give in to carnal pleasures and sin? Antinomianism inverted the premise of Arminianism. The

essential message that Antinomianism conveyed was that if one is elected, if one is predestined

for salvation no matter what, there is no reason why he should perform piety. If an elect person

cannot be cast away from God’s grace, he might as well indulge in sin. This posed a veritable

threat for the National Covenant, since the National Covenant was based on a strict

performance of Mosaic Law.

The Covenant of Grace offered a solution to both the threats of Arminianism and

Antinomianism. According to the Covenant of Grace, electionism was no longer reserved for a

small band of saints. As God’s grace was to be reached individually, anyone had reason to live

in piety. Thus the Covenant of Grace does away with the threat formulated by Arminius. From

the framework of the Covenant of Grace, also Antinomianism no longer forms a threat for

electionism. Divine Grace is no longer reached through a strict performance of Mosaic Law.

Instead faith in the Lord and in salvation becomes in itself the act through which the Covenant

of Grace is maintained. There is no longer need for an outward performance of piety. An elect

now should feel obliged to remain pious inwardly. Thus within the framework of the Covenant

of Grace, salvation and piety more than ever become a matter of the spirit. The Covenant of

Grace can now be seen to fulfil two very important functions for the Puritans seeking salvation.

On the one hand it offers assurance of election: a saint knows on an inward level whether he is

elect or not. On the other hand the Covenant of Grace still requires a moral obligation on the

part of man: an inward performance of piety in order to show faith.

7.4.2. Cast out, yet blessed: the essential paradox in the Book of Jeremiah

Let us now return to the Puritans’ adaptation of the framework provided in the Book

of Jeremiah. Though the adaptation of doctrine portrayed by Jeremiah followed logically from

the axiom that the Puritans were the countertype of the Jews, the Puritans still encountered a

problem. The message that Jeremiah conveys intrinsically embraces a paradox. The

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Babylonian Exile was a divine punishment for Israel’s earlier sins. Due to their backslidings

the Jews have become outcasts. But the outcasts remain chosen nonetheless as the Lord

professes that he is still “married unto you” (Jer. 3:14). This is highly paradoxical: how can

the Lord at the same time punish the backsliders while still claiming that Israel remains within

God’s grace? The Christian solution, which the Puritans gratefully concurred with, of this

paradox is to be found in the difference between the National Covenant and the Covenant of

Grace. In chapter 31 of the Book of Jeremiah, after chapters of condemning sinful Israel, God

all of a sudden changes his tone. In Jeremiah 31:31, the Lord suddenly professes that Israel

will enter in a new covenant, viz. the Covenant of Grace. This goes completely against the

ideas and foreshadowings of retribution of the earlier chapters of Jeremiah. How could one

explain this sudden shift of tone? Christian theology claims that God was addressing two

different peoples: a literal Israel and a spiritual Israel. The literal Israel, the Jewish Nation as

it is understood under the National Covenant, viz. the nation that shares the same bloodbonds,

is assured retribution. Literal Israel has failed to maintain the National Covenant and therefore

it shall be punished. But when the Lord addresses the “House of Israel” in Jeremiah 31:33, he

does not refer to the Nation of Israel. The people God promises a new covenant, are not an

ethnic people but a spiritual people. The nation of the elect becomes a nation of the spirit, the

entire community of the saints, of the elect, of the pious. Thus the Israel the Lord punishes for

breaching the National Covenant is not the same Israel with which he will embark on the

Covenant of Grace. As stated earlier, material conception has become a spiritual conception.

In Sion the Outcast Healed of Her Wounds (1661), John Norton elucidates that the

exceptional status of the Babylonian outcast can be applied to the Puritans. Norton subtly

identifies the settlers’ isolation in New England as the secular version of the Jews’

Babylonian Exile. He immediately draws attention to the double standard by which the

outcast is measured:

A people, none neglected like them; a people none beloved like them:

neglected if you look at men; beloved, if you look at God. A people, whose

adversaries are instrumental to their prosperity. These are such riddles as

we may truly say God’s grace only makes…


Norton wants to offer consolation to his despairing public. The New England communities

should not despair at their isolation with Babylonian proportions, they should rejoice at the

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thought that they are God’s beloved people. This is the paradox that lies at the heart of

Jeremiah’s outcasts: they are cast out, yet blessed. In the above passage, Norton also refers to

the affliction the Puritans suffer. Here we can conclude that the Puritans indeed saw their

present predicament not as vindictive punishment, but as corrective affliction. God has no

intention to punish his backsliding people, but only to set them straight again. Through this

affliction, the Lord hopes to show the backsliding saints the pathway to salvation again:

When Sion for its sin is become an outcast (a subject of contempt) God takes

occasion from her calamity to give her repentance, that so he may bring

upon her the blessing of his own people.


The ultimate salvation for New England can only be reached through repentance. We should

note that Norton begins his sermon with the above passage. Norton thus does not threaten his

sinful audience with the future possibility of God’s wrath, but he immediately comforts them

in their hour of need. From the very start Norton explains to his flock what the Lord is

expecting from the New England congregations. In his appeal to repent, Norton follows

strictly in the footsteps of Jeremiah. Though other peoples should indeed fear God’s wrath

because of their sins, the elect should fear no vindictive retribution. The present calamities

they are experiencing are corrective of nature and designed precisely to induce repentance.

Once the Lord’s demand for repentance is met, he can again lead his elect people to salvation.

This process of repentance leading to salvation is theorized in the Covenant of Grace. The

Lord only offers this corrective process to those who are under covenant with him. Norton

tries to assure the outcasts that they are covenanted by drawing on a relation between the Lord

and his people that is based on empathy:

Christ is sensible of the sufferings of his outcasts. It is true that the outcast

doth suffer; it is a greater truth that the God of the outcast suffereth. Isaiah

63:9: in all their affliction, he was afflicted; […]


Norton stresses on this relation of empathy between the Lord and his outcasts. This functions

as a double reminder for a people that might begin to despair at their affliction. When in

despair, the outcasts should realise that God is in a close bondage with his people, since he

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even shares their sufferings. Norton constructs a portrayal of a God who has no intention to

abandon his people or even to prolong his people’s sufferings any more than necessary. The

portrayal of such a benign God further implies that salvation is almost an assured prospect and

maybe even not so distant as one would be inclined to think.

7.5. The Halfway Covenant

There is another apparent contradiction to be found in the framework of Jeremiah. The

Covenant of Grace is an individual bond between the Lord and the saint. Situated entirely

within the realm of the spirit, the Covenant of Grace is perhaps the most powerful formulation

that faith is an inward aspiration. Nevertheless, Jeremiah claims that the covenant will be

made with “the House of Israel” (Jer. 31:31). We have earlier remarked that by this House of

Israel is meant a spiritual nation, the whole community of the saints. But as the National

Covenant was dissolved, so did the outward signs of grace disappear as well. Under the

National Covenant one was assured of election if one was a Jew. The Covenant of Grace lacks

these outward signs of election. Since the receiving of grace, and thus the knowledge of

assured election, is restricted within an inward level, it is impossible for the elect individual to

know who his fellow elect are. How then can Jeremiah speak of a spiritual nation if all elect

are isolated from one another? In Christian theology that spiritual nation is forged by the

Church (Gelin 1962 : 61). The nation of which Jeremiah speaks is no longer a national or

ethnic entity but a religious unity. Thus the receiving of grace is indeed still a matter of the

spirit, but the striving for salvation supersedes the individual and becomes a communal

aspiration.

The Puritans, however, never wholly departed from the National Covenant. The

National Covenant had backfired because it proved impossible for a whole community to stay

devoid of sin. Therefore, divine grace was henceforth to be reached individually, within the

framework of the Covenant of Grace. Though this new covenant was made between the Lord

and a nation in spirit, it lacked outward signs of election. The ingenuity of the Puritan doctrine

managed, however, to combine the best of both worlds, viz. the outward sign of election from

the National Covenant and the individual receiving of grace from the Covenant of Grace,

through the Christian doctrine of the Church as a nation. This is the Halfway Covenant.

In the Halfway Covenant, the Puritans saw an instrument to combine the Covenant of

Grace with the National Covenant. The mechanism of this Halfway Covenant allows the

individual obtainment of divine grace to be transferred over generations. Thus the Halfway

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Covenant is designed to insert the Covenant of Grace in the framework of the National

Covenant and let grace supersede the individual.

Membership of a nation is passed genetically. For instance, it sufficed for Isaac to be

the son of Abraham in order to be in bondage with the Lord under the National Covenant. The

rite of initiation for an individual to enter a nation consists of his genes. The nation under the

Covenant of Grace is understood as a religious unity. The new nation is the Church itself. But

membership of this nation of the spirit was not genetically transferable. The rite of initiation

to enter the nation did no longer consist in the genes. To gain membership of any Church, one

had to be baptized, the Puritans reasoned. Thus, for the Covenant of Grace to be passed on

over generations it sufficed to baptize one’s offspring. The Puritans began to see baptism as a

reliable sign of grace, the outward sign of election as can be found in the National Covenant.

Thus the Halfway Covenant manages to combine the Covenant of Grace with the National

Covenant, as the individually obtained divine mercy could be passed over to future

generations. The Puritans had now forged a seemingly infallible doctrine. These ‘genetics of

salvation’, a term invented by Puritan scholar Sacvan Bercovitch (Bercovitch 1978 : 62), will

allow the Puritan saints with an almost certain likelihood to reach the ultimate kingdom of

heaven, not as an individual, but as a nation of saints. This is the Puritan exceptionalism to its

full extent: the Puritans in New England alone have managed to nationalize the Covenant of

Grace, an essential individual covenant with the Lord.

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8. Puritans and Indians

8.1. An inhabited wilderness

Thus far we have described the Puritan congregations in New England as a community

in isolation. This is certainly true in that the Puritan settlers felt very much isolated from their

mother country, physically, politically and economically. Moreover, the Puritan congregation

that sought piety had to withdraw itself. Though a description of an isolated Puritan

community is largely justifiable, the Puritan settlers were of course far from alone in the

wilderness of the new world. In the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth century, the

North-eastern coastline of the continent of North-America was colonised by not one but four

different European nations: Spain, France, Holland and England. Though contact between

different congregations, especially between foreign congregations, were scarce, the Puritans

were of course well aware of this Spanish, Dutch and French presence. Next to foreign

settlers, the Puritans were most aware of the presence of the native inhabitants of the new

world: the Indians15

The settlers of all four colonising nations shared a common view of the Indians. The

Indians were generally seen as a people inferior to the European coloniser: they lacked civil

government, culture, agriculture and religion. But gradually in the seventeenth century, the

attitude of the English colonisers, among which the Puritans, towards the Indians began to

show some discrepancies with the three other foreign powers. France and Holland soon

started to entertain commercial relationships with the Indians. As fur-trading proved to be a

thriving business, the French and the Dutch had every reason to be on good terms with the

Indians. The Spanish settlers were active in gold digging and in agriculture and both

industries required a conversion of Indians as slaves. Thus Spain, France and Holland were

solely interested in commerce. The English settlers, however, did not migrate to the new

world in hope of commercial success. They were only interested in the new continent itself, in

the land. Above all, they saw New England as a virgin land where the kingdom of Christ

could be ushered in. This discrepancy is also obvious from a demographic point of view.

Whereas the Spanish, Dutch and French settlers, interested in financial gain only, consisted of

.

15 By referring to the Native Americans as ‘Indians’ I wish to distance myself from any derogatory connotation that may be implied in the term.

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almost exclusively male adventurers, the English congregations were made up of entire

families. It was altogether obvious that the English were in New England to construct for

themselves a new life. Thus, instead of allies or partners in commerce, the Indians became for

the Puritans mere occupants of a desolate stretch of land.

8.2. The principle of vacuum domicilium

New England was the land of inheritance for the Puritans. The whole Puritan errand of

ushering in the new era for mankind in the new world was based upon the idea that the settlers

were the rightful inheritors of New England, just as Canaan was of old promised to Abraham.

In an ideal scenario, New England should have been a virgin and desolate land. In God’s

Promise to His Plantations, John Cotton reasons: “Where there is a vacant place, there is

liberty for the sons of Adam and Noah to come and inhabit.” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 :

77). But as Charles M. Segal and David Stineback point out in Puritans, Indians and Manifest

Destiny (1977), it would have been ridiculous for the Puritans to proclaim they had settled in a

vacant land (Segal & Stineback 1977 : 47). The Puritans needed a vacant stretch of land

where they could settle and establish their congregations of saints, but this was incompatible

with the Indians’ occupation of the land.

The Puritans found a solution to this problem in the concept of ‘vacuum domicilium’.

The premise of vacuum domicilium stipulates that all of the land in New England that is not

being farmed or lived on by the Indians was considered vacant and awaiting rightful

occupation by the Puritans (Segal & Stineback 1977 : 46). The principle of vacuum

domicilium was gratefully adopted by John Winthrop. In his Reasons to be Considered

(1629), Winthrop counters some objections to the Puritans’ removal to the new world. One of

these objections reads: “We have no warrant to enter upon that land which hath been so long

possessed by others.” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 73). John Winthrop answers this objection

with the following rationale:

The natives in New England, they inclose no land neither have any settled

habitation nor any tame cattle to improve the land by, and so have no other

but a natural right to those countries. So as if we leave them sufficient for

their use we may lawfully take the rest, there being more than enough for

them and us.


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Winthrop speaks of two rights by which a man could claim a stretch of land: a natural right

and a civil right. The first right is for all men alike: “ […] the first right was natural when men

held the earth in common, every men sowing and feeding where he pleased […]”. The civil

right, however, is reserved to a smaller number of men: “ […] as men and the cattle increased,

they appropriated certain parcels of ground by enclosing and peculiar manurance, and this in

time gave them a civil right.” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 73). Winthrop furnishes these two

rights with a timeframe: the natural right should naturally progress into the civil right. The

Puritans now can make a stronger claim than the Indians on the lands which they commonly

share. Since the Indians do not practice any form of agriculture or herdsmanship, they can

only claim a natural right to the lands. The Puritans, who of course did master the art of

agriculture, could claim the civil right, which supersedes the natural right. The Indians’ lack

of civilization, in the definition of the Puritans, is in itself also an argument to employ the

principle of vacuum domicilium. William Bradford , in his History of Plymouth Plantation,

makes the following note on New England and its inhabitants: “[…] those vast and unpeopled

countries of America, which are frutfull and fitt for habitation; being devoyd of all civill

inhabitants […]” (Miller 1963 : 96). To Bradford the only inhabitants that are to be reckoned

with are civil inhabitants.

Moreover, according to the Puritans, the Indians had neglected a divine ordinance. The

Lord had commanded Adam and his offspring to “Increase and multiply, replenish the earth

and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). To subdue the earth meant to practice agriculture, the Puritans

reasoned. And since also the Indians were the progeny of Adam, they had sinned against a

divine command. The Puritans could well imagine the Lord’s delight that the ordinance he

had commanded was now finally introduced in this land after all those centuries. The verse

from Gen. 1:28 is in itself also an argument for the Puritans’ rightful claim of inhabiting the

new world. In that verse God commands to replenish the whole earth. Winthrop employs this

verse as a powerful argument for the settlers’ migration to the new world:

“[…] why then should we stand here [England] striving for places of

habitation […], and in the mean time suffer a whole continent, as fruitful

and convenient for the use of man, to lie waste without any

improvement?”


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It is the settlers’ sacred duty to carry out God’s ordinance. The Puritans reason that, in

introducing agriculture - or civil culture in general – in New England, they are fulfilling a

mission ordered by the Lord himself. Winthrop sees in this a second argument that warrants

the Puritans presence in the new world: “ […] the natives, who find benefit already by our

neighbourhood and learn of us to improve […]” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 73).

Robert Cushman was a great adversary of the Puritan doctrine that New England

should be seen as the New Canaan: “Neither is there any land or possession now, like unto the

possession the Jews had in Canaan.” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 42). Cushman represents a

very rare voice within the Puritan community. Critical at the bigger part of ideas from the

Puritan doctrine, Cushman represents the voice of reason and moderation within the Puritan

camp. Though he does not accept, and even opposes, the doctrine of the New Canaan, even

Cushman adopts the principle of the vacuum domicilium. In Reasons and Considerations

Touching the Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the Parts of America (1622),

Cushman provides an argument for the lawfulness of the Puritans’ migration to New England,

that, for once, does not deviate entirely from the Puritans’ doctrinal spectrum:

This then is a sufficient reason to prove our going thither to live lawful:

their land is spacious and void […]. They are not industrious, neither have

art, science, skill or faculty to use either the land or the commodities of it

[…] so it is lawful now to take a land which none useth, and make use of

it…


In God’s Promise to His Plantations John Cotton names three ways for the Puritans to

inherit a land that is essentially not theirs:

Now God makes room for a people three ways: First, when he casts out

the enemies of a people before them by lawful war with the inhabitants

[…]. Secondly, when he gives a foreign people favor in the eyes of any

native people to come and sit down with them either by way of purchase

[…] or else when they give it in courtesy […]. Thirdly, when he makes a

country though not altogether void of inhabitants, yet void in the place

where they reside.


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It was especially the second way of gaining land, by purchase or by gift, that the Puritans were

industrious in. Purchasing land from the Indians became the major strategy for the Puritans,

and also for any other settlers, to extend their territory. A purchase of a stretch of land was

entirely legal and the outcome was, of course, that after the purchase the ownership of a land

could no longer be debated. After a purchase was made, the settlers would no longer have to

justify their presence on a stretch of land that is essentially not theirs, as, by legal act, they

became the rightful inheritors. But according to Segal and Stineback the strategies for

purchasing a land used by the Puritans were all but exemplary (seagal & Stineback 1977 : 48).

One popular method for acquiring a piece of land was that an Indian would be charged with a

number of offences. If he could not pay the fines, an offer was made for the Indian’s land and,

upon the purchase, the Indian’s debt would be resolved. Other strategies involved getting the

Indians intoxicated with alcohol, then draft up a deed they could not read and making them

sign the contract. The settlers even did not hesitate to use violence. It should be noted,

however, that not all Puritans were so eager to purchase land from the Indians. Some Puritan

leaders protested vehemently against the purchase of Indian territory. They saw the vast

wilderness as the domain wherein Satan resided. To gain control over a piece of land that

belonged to an Indian, was to allow Satan to gain control over the Puritan in this case.

The third manner for the Puritans to gain ownership of a land, according to Cotton,

roughly coincides with the principle of vacuum domicilium. But Cotton has added a

connotation in this particular definition of vacuum domicilium: it is the Lord who makes a

country void of inhabitants. According to Segal and Stineback (Segal & Stineback 1977 : 31)

the native population in 1600 in New England ranged from 70.000 to 90.000. But after the

landing of the first white settlers two epidemics raged among the Indians and decimated their

numbers. The pilgrims brought diseases that were standard and surmountable for Europeans

but unfamiliar and deadly for the Indians. For the Indians is was altogether obvious that these

epidemics were the direct result of the coming of the pilgrims. The Puritans, however, saw in

the epidemics the hand of God, who, in the words of John Cotton, “makes room for his

people”. Also John Winthrop thinks of the epidemics as divine support: “Thirdly, God hath

consumed the natives with a great plague in those parts so as there be few inhabitants left.”

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 73). Of course, the idea of the Lord making room for his people

by decimating the native population served the principle of vacuum domicilium extremely

well, because “Where there is a vacant place, there is liberty for the sons of Adam and Noah to

come and inhabit […]” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 77).

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8.3. Three theories about the Indians’ origins

The Puritans had to provide a framework to justify their migration to a land that was

already inhabited. For this, they employed the principle of vacuum domicilium. But the

Indians’ presence in New England still had to be fitted into the Puritans’ eschatology. The

Puritan doctrine was now challenged to provide an explanation for the Indians’ presence in

the Puritans’ holy land. Soon, Puritan theories about the origins of the Indian people began to

spring up. In what follows, three such theories will be discussed.

8.3.1. Canaanites

One of the more popular theories explaining the presence of the Indians in the New

Canaan is almost self-explicatory. The Puritans reasoned that if New England was Canaan

and the settlers were the Jews that migrated to Canaan, then the Indians were obviously the

Canaanites. This theory could, without much effort, be included in the Puritan doctrine. In

Exodus 23:27 and Exodus 34:11, the Lord makes clear his intentions towards the native

population of Canaan:

I will send my fear before thee, and I will destroy all the people to whom

thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto

thee.

(Ex. 23:27)

Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before

thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and

the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

(Ex. 34:11)

The Puritans could easily identify the Indians as the secular countertype of the native

inhabitants of Canaan. Like the population of Canaan, the population of New England also

constituted of several tribes. For the Puritans, this accordance could have been no

coincidence. Moreover, with the great epidemics of the early seventeenth century, nearly

ninety percent of the native population was wiped out (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 73). The

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Puritans reasoned that Lord’s resolution to destroy the native people of Canaan had been

fulfilled in New Canaan.

8.3.2. The Lost Tribe of Israel

Another, more marginal, theory of the Indians’ origins took off from the premise that

all of the world’s population are descendants from Noah (Canup 1990 : 64). This is a logical

conclusion drawn from verse 7:23 in the Book of Genesis16

. The Puritans had three options

for the choice of the Indians’ patriarch: Japheth, Ham or Shem, Noah’s three sons. Puritan

theories have explored and considered all three possibilities. Japheth seemed to be the least

possible patriarch of the Indians as the general tendency was to assign Japheth as the remote

ancestor for the Europeans. It was altogether clear for the English settlers that the Indians

could not share a common ancestry with themselves. The general Puritan view of the Indians

was that they were a degenerate, savage and barbarous people. William Bradford, in History

of Plymouth Plantation, describes America’s native population as:

[…] the salvage people; who are cruell, barbarous, and most trecherous,

being most furious in their rage, and merciles wher they overcome; not

being contente only to kill, and take away life, but delight to tormente men

in the most bloodie manner that be […]

(Miller 1963 : 97)

The English settlers had to distance themselves from such a degenerate and barbarous people.

It was for the Puritans impossible to draw on their own sainthood whilst they should share a

common ancestry with such a degenerate people. This ruled out Japheth as the Founding Father

of the Indian line (Canup 1990 : 65). The next possible theory that was scrutinized was an

Indian descent from Ham. The theory that puts Ham forth as the Indians’ patriarch could very

well explain the Indians’ degeneracy. In Genesis 9:25, Noah curses his son Ham for seeing his

father naked. After the Flood the Hamitic tribe wandered recklessly, which could account for

the its degeneracy. But this theory held too close a bearing to the Puritans’ predicament, as

Cushman puts it: “But now we are all in all places strangers and pilgrims, travellers and

16 Gen. 7:23 : And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

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sojourners […]” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 42). Thus the theory of the Hamitic descent of

the Indians was abandoned. This leaves the Puritans with only one of Noah’s sons to be the

Indians’ patriarch: Shem. But there was a grave complication for the Puritans to overcome if

they wished to cling unto the latter theory. According to the Book of Genesis, the Jewish

people were all descendants of Shem17

In the doctrine of the National Conversion of the Jews, the native population in New

England was identified as the so-called Lost Tribe of Israel. The doctrine of the National

Conversion of the Jews claimed that after the Babylonian Exile, Israel could still be saved as a

nation. In spite of the Lord’s retribution, and in spite of the Covenant of Grace, salvation still

was a reward that belonged to the whole nation of Israel. The Lord would again restore Israel

to its former glory (Berchovitch 1978 : 73). The doctrine puts mass conversion of the

degenerate Jews forward as the pathway to national salvation. The Hebrew Book of Mysteries

even fixed a date for the national salvation: the year 1648 was to be the ‘annus mirabilis’ for

the Jews (Berchovitch 1978 : 74). The small fraction of Puritans that believed the Indians to be

the Lost Tribe of Israel gratefully adopted the doctrine of the National Conversion of the Jews

and applied it to the Puritans’ own errand. We have earlier established that the Puritans saw

themselves as the spiritual Israel, the inward nation of saints nationalized by the Church

through the doctrine of the Halfway Covenant. It was now the Puritans’ sacred duty to convert

literal Israel, that part of Israel that degenerated into sin after the breach of the National

Covenant. The Puritans’ errand in the wilderness was now to baptise and convert the

degenerate Indians and so allow the Lord to fulfil the prophesy of gloriously restoring Israel in

the kingdom of heaven. John Cotton, in the God’s Promise to His Plantations, claims that it

was the Lord’s divine plan to bring the Puritans, his exemplary band of saints, to New England

in order to baptise the Indians, thereby retrieving his lost flock:

. This implies that also the Indians, that degenerate and

barbarous people in the eyes of the Puritans, were God’s chosen people. Still, strangely

enough, this theory found the most supporters within the Puritan camp. In fact, a small fraction

of Puritans were very eager to identify the Indians as one of the Jewish tribes.

17 Jews are often referred to as Semites, viz. from the tribe of Shem.

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[…] offend not the poor natives, but as you partake in their land, so make

them partakers of your precious faith: as you reap their temporals, so feed

them with your spirituals: win them to the love of Christ […]. Who knoweth

whether God have reared this whole plantation for such an end.


The idea of a mass conversion of the Indians by the Puritans served the doctrine of the

Halfway Covenant extremely well. Baptism was a reliable sign of divine grace and a mass

conversion of the Lost Tribe would only amplify the eventual salvation. As soon as the Lost

Tribe of Israel is retrieved by baptism, the Lord would surely usher in the kingdom of heaven

for the Puritans.

We must note that this theory of the Indians being the Lost tribe of Israel remained

marginal within the Puritan camp. By the late 1650s the idea was already dismissed (Canup

1990 : 71). In New-Englands True Interest (1668), William Stoughton obviously states:

Of the poor Natives before we came we may say as Isa. 63:19, They were

not called by the Lords Name, he bear not Rule over them: But we have

been from the beginning, and we are the Lords.

(Miller 1963 : 245)

8.3.3. The Antichrist

The theory of the Indians as the Lost Tribe of Israel was abandoned. Nevertheless, the

necessity of the Indians’ baptism remained to be an important pillar of the Puritans’ doctrine.

There might have been no consensus within the Puritan camp about the Indians’ true identity,

yet the Puritans did concur upon the necessity to convert the Indians. To the Puritans, the need

for conversion of the native population was almost conceived as a natural goal. Even Robert

Cushman, who did not believe that the Puritans were on a sacred errand in the wilderness,

spoke of the Indians’ baptism as a natural objective: “Now it seemeth unto me that we ought

also to endeavor and use the means to convert them […]; to us they cannot come, our land is

full; to them we may go, their land is empty.” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 43). Cushman,

who is extremely critical of the doctrine the Puritans profess, adopts the necessity of the

Indians’ baptism without hesitation. This is indicative of how deeply rooted the idea of the

Indians’ conversion actually was in the minds of the Puritans. The New England saints were

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assured that the conversion of the Indians was an intrinsic constituent of serving the Lord in

the wilderness, viz. professing Christianity all over the world. John Winthrop, in Reasons to

Be Considered, states: “First, it will be a service to the church of great consequence to carry

the gospel into those parts of the world […]” (Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 71). As Winthrop

continues, he provides a reason why the Christian gospel should be carried into the

wilderness: “[…] to raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist […]”.

It was common knowledge in Christian doctrine that God had allowed Satan to rule

over the uncivilized parts of the world. To the Puritans, the continent which they had set foot

on was the domain of the Antichrist. According to Christian theology, Satan had fled the

civilized world, which was under the reign of the Lord, and had settled in the wilderness,

where he could oppose God (Segal & Stineback 1977 : 32). For William Bradford, in his

History of Plymouth Plantation, it was altogether obvious what superhuman power reigned in

these desolate lands: “[…] Satane hath more power in these heathen lands […]” (Miller 1963 :

112). According to the Puritans the Lord was seeking to end the reign of Satan and to carry

his gospel into the wilderness. It was for this reason that God had sent his most pious warriors

to New England, to commence the battle against the Antichrist. From this point of view, the

Puritans could easily explain the presence of the Indians in the new world. The native

population was seen as minions of Satan, his devilish warriors that had to help him defend his

satanic bulwark against Christianity. The Puritans who supported this theory did not attribute

humanity to the Indians. The Indians were the seed of the serpent, which of old entertained

enmity with the seed of man (Segal & Stineback 1977 : 111). Even Roger Williams, who was

a great friend to the Indians and accused the Puritans’ persecution of the Indians, was

convinced that the Indians were devil-worshippers (Segal & Stineback 1977 : 49).

New England was to be the site of a historical clash between two armies, the Christian

army constituted by the Puritan saints and a satanic army made up of the native population.

As long as Satan continued to rule over New England, the Puritans realised that the kingdom

of heaven could never be ushered in in New England. The Lord did not single out New

England as the site of the summit of reform while there was still a devilish presence among

the saints. The Puritans thus knew that the stakes were high and, moreover, that, for the first

time, the obtaining of salvation was in their hands. Because Satan’s presence in New England

had lured the saints into sin and only if New England was entirely devoid of sin, could the

kingdom of heaven come. Therefore, to battle the heathen Indians was equated with a

weakening of Satan’s power. Through the battle against the Indians, the Puritans hoped to

94

wipe away the sins in New England. Thus the more the saints excelled in battle against the

armies of Antichrist, the sooner salvation would be reached.

In Wonder-Working Providence, Edward Johnson realises the necessity of calling his

flock to arms: “[…] because you shall be sure the day is come indeed, behold the Lord Christ

marshalling of his invincible Army to the battell […]” (Miller 1963 : 161). But about the

exact nature of this battle the Puritans did not seem to concur. Was it a battle in spirit, in

which the objective was to bring the Christian gospel to the heathens through the means of

baptism? Or was the was the concept of a battle against the Indians all but metaphorical? Did

the Lord expect the Puritans to literally fight the native population and establish God’s gospel

simply by annihilating any heathen presence in this wilderness? Johnson claims that the battle

is to be taken both literally as metaphorically, and that these two notions walk hand in hand:

[…] some suppose this onely to be mysticall, and not literal at all:

assuredly the spirituall fight is chiefly to be attended, and the other not

neglected, having a neer dependancy one upon the other, especially at

this time […]

(Miller 1963 : 161) Should some Puritans take the metaphor literally, there was no doubt that the battle was

entirely justified and lawful. In God’s Promise to his Plantation, John Cotton claims that

physical battle is one of the three ways in which the Lord makes room for his people: “First,

when he casts out the enemies of a people before them by lawful war with the inhabitants”

(Heimert & Delbanco 1985 : 77).

The Puritans produced three theories about the origins of the native population: the

Indians were either Canaanites, the Lost Tribe of Israel, or they were Satan’s progeny. It is

important to note that all three theories share some common features. All three theories

predict a Puritan victory over the Indians. The Canaanites shall be driven out, the Lost Tribe

shall be baptised and Satan’s seed will be conquered, whether by baptism or in lawful war.

More importantly, however, all three theories put forward that the Puritans’ errand will be

fulfilled after the obstacle of the Indian presence is overcome. Once the Canaanites are driven

out, the Puritans can inherit their promised land of the New Canaan; if Israel is re-united

through baptism, salvation for the entire nation, and for the Puritans, is anticipated; and

finally, as soon as Satan is defeated, the kingdom of heaven, devoid of satanicly induced sin,

95

can ultimately be ushered in. Again, the Puritan doctrine shows itself to be extremely flexible

and multivocal. If one is forced to abandon a theory because of incongruities, one could

always take his refuge in another theory. Salvation is a prospect that the Puritans will not

allow to pass them by. One way or another, the Puritan saints will reach their sacred goal.

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9. Conclusion: the Puritan adoption of the National Covenant and the

Covenant of Grace presented logically

The New England Puritans saw two major pathways to salvation: through the National

Covenant and through the Covenant of Grace. In chapter 7 we have discussed that the Puritan

doctrine, formerly centred around the National Covenant, almost naturally evolved into a

doctrine that is centred around the Covenant of Grace. In Chapters 1 to 7 we have elucidated

the many mechanisms that have allowed the Puritans to claim both of the covenants and,

moreover, to keep both covenants18

.

In Chapter 5 (5.1. The Puritans’ claim on the National Covenant), we have drawn

attention to the widespread belief amongst the English people that they were direct

descendants of Noah19

The Puritans thus needed to overcome an obstacle, viz. the Flood. The discontent

Puritans started to attribute biblical significance to the turmoil in seventeenth century

England. They started to draw numerous parallels between the English religious and political

climate and the predicament of mankind after the Fall of Man, before the Flood. The Puritan

preachers, still in England, began to theorize that in England, due to the corruption of the

Anglican Church, a new Fall of Man was taking place. According to the Puritans, the Lord

would utterly destroy England, as a countertype to the Flood. They reasoned that the

disruption and destruction of some of the Protestant Churches on the mainland of Europe, viz.

in Bohemia, Denmark and the Palatinate (1.3.1. Thomas Hooker : The Danger of Desertion),

were to be seen as precedents of the fate the Anglican Church was awaiting. The actual Flood

. The National Covenant in the Book of Genesis takes root in the

covenant between the Lord and Abraham. We have argued that the covenant of the Lord with

Noah is a foreshadowing of the later covenant between the Lord and Abraham. Moreover,

Noah is promised that also his seed will be covenanted (4.1. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). For

the Puritan theologians it was now clear which route they had to follow in order to rightfully

claim the National Covenant. They had already established themselves as the progeny of

Noah, which is the starting point of the route, and now they needed to follow the path, drawn

up in the Book of Genesis, that will lead them to Abraham and the National Covenant.

18 Although the National Covenant did of course backfire, the Puritans never wholly abandoned it. 19 The English traced their ancestry back to Gomer, son of Japheth, son of Naoh. In Chapter 8 ( 8.3.2. The Lost Tribe of Israel) we also noted that it was common creed to assign Japheth as the ancestor of all Europeans.

97

had found its countertype in the two Civil wars in seventeenth century England, according to

William Hooke (1.3.5. William Hooke and the Civil Wars). It then only took a small step in

the Puritans’ theory to compare their own emigration from England with Noah’s survival of

the Flood. In chapter 2 (2.2. God begins to ship away his Noahs) we have sufficiently

established that the Puritans indeed saw themselves as the countertype of Noah.

Through both of the above countertypes, the Puritans had cleared for themselves the

path towards Abraham. But the Puritan emigration lend itself easily to another, far more

important analogy. The Puritans escaped a troublesome country, in which they were religious

and political captives, and would make the crossing to a mystical new land. The parallel

almost drew itself: the Puritans’ migration was, more than the survival of the Flood, the

countertype of the Jews’ Exodus out of Egypt. In the Puritan doctrine, an exploration of

different analogies that would support the above countertype had begun. England was

compared to Egypt, the troubles in England in the seventeenth century were a countertype of

the Ten Plagues, the safe crossing of the Atlantic Ocean was made analogues to the division

of the Red Sea by Moses and John Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay

Company and the undisputed leader of the Arbella-fleet, became the secular version of Moses

leading the Jews through the desert (3.2. Parallels between the Exodus and the Puritans’

migration from England).

But in their adoption of the pathway towards the National Covenant, the Puritans had

omitted a quintessential phase. The Puritan theologians had made a significant jump in the

chronology of the Old Testament. They did not proceed from the Covenant between Noah and

the Lord to the Covenant between God and Abraham – which was, after all, the route they had

outlined from the beginning. Through the twofold possibility of interpreting the Puritans’

migration, the Puritans had deviated from the timeline in the Bible, thereby denying

themselves any possible adoption of the Covenant between the Lord and Abraham (Chapter

4). In the Book of Exodus, the Jews are already under the National Covenant. Since the

Puritans compared their migration to the Jews’ Exodus, they left their adoption of the actual

National Covenant implicit and not proven.

The Puritans still needed to provide sufficient proof that they were also in bondage

with God under the National Covenant. The Puritans’ migration as the countertype of the

Jews’ Exodus certainly fitted well into the Puritans’ adoption of the National Covenant, but it

was by no means sufficient to prove the Covenant. The actual proof, at least to the Puritans,

was provided by an ingenious and resourceful reasoning from John Winthrop. An excerpt

from A Model of Christian Charity reads:

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Now if the Lord shall please to heare us , and brings us in peace to the place

wee desire, then hath he ratified this Covenant and sealed our Commission

[…]

(Miller 1963 : 198)

Winthrop cleverly inverted the chronology in the Book of Exodus. God leads the Jews to

Canaan because they are under the National Covenant. Winthrop inverts a result of the

Covenant into an argument for the Covenant (5.1. The Puritans’ claim on the National

Covenant).

The Puritans had logically reached their goal: a justifiable claim of the National

Covenant. It is essential to note that the Puritans did not simply copy the chronological

pathway towards Canaan as it is outlined in the Old Testament. From the start, the Puritans’

goal was to apply the National Covenant to themselves. Only then did they start with drawing

the many parallels and countertypes, since they needed to provide enough convincing

arguments. Thus the Puritan doctrine that we examined throughout this paper, is not a

chronological secular copy of the story conveyed in the Old Testament, but a logical secular

copy. With each new countertype that the Puritans could establish, a logical step was taken in

the route towards the National Covenant. By no means did the Puritan doctrine take root in the

idea of a parallel between troublesome seventeenth century England and the Flood. The Puritan

doctrine starts with Puritan claim of the National Covenant and then, through a series of

backwards analogies, works its way back to Moses, the Exodus, Egypt, Abraham and finally

Noah. Thus the Puritan doctrine is the logical secular copy of the chronology conveyed in the

Old Testament.

In chapter 6, we have discussed the introduction of sin in New England. A direct

consequence of the second-generation backsliders was that the Puritans’ claim of the National

Covenant became untenable. Because the terms of the divine contract were infringed, the

National Covenant would be irretrievably lost (6.2. The Era of Corruption). Soon it became

clear for the Puritan preachers that they could no longer deny the presence of sin amongst their

flocks. Puritan theologians now were confronted with two grave problems for the Puritan

doctrine: not only was the National Covenant breached – which meant a disruption in the

Puritans’ pathway to salvation –, but all of a sudden the New England saint had become a

sinner. Immediately there was a boom of mitigation and moderation to be found in Puritan

99

literature in the 1650s and 1660s. William Bradford does not only diminish the gravity of sin in

New England, he also acquits the New England sinner by remarking that sin in New England is

induced by the presence of Satan (6.3. Adapting the doctrine: mitigation for the New England

sinners). Bradford’s mitigation of the New England sinner is of huge importance for the

Puritans’ striving for salvation. The message that is conveyed in the sermons of the mid

seventeenth century is that, though the National Covenant backfired, there are still saints to be

found in New England and salvation is not irretrievably lost.

A new pathway towards the ultimate kingdom could now be constructed. Though the

Puritans did put the obtainment of the National Covenant forward as their main objective, they

did have back-up plan from the start: the Covenant of Grace. At any point in their

eschatological route, the Puritans could fall back on the Covenant of Grace. The sheer

brilliance of the Puritan doctrine now strongly comes forward in two ways.

Firstly, the Covenant of Grace, a pathway towards salvation as valid as the National

Covenant, takes root precisely in the breach of the National Covenant. The eschatological

scheme as portrayed in the Book of Jeremiah is the following: the National Covenant is

dissolved and the Lord sends his people away in the Babylonian Exile. This Babylonian Exile

employs a double standard: it is a vindictive punishment for the sinners of Israel, but a

corrective affliction for Israel’s saints (7.3.1. The Babylonian Exile as divine corrective

punishment). Thus, just as the National Covenant divides the Jews from the gentiles, the

Covenant of Grace divides the saints from the sinners. Now it becomes obvious why Bradford

did offer mitigation for the New England sinners: to convey the message that there were still

saints among the Puritan congregations. Thus the Puritans – convinced, of course, that they

were saints – had allowed themselves to be contracted by the Lord under the Covenant of

Grace. The veritable convenience for the Puritans is that the Covenant of Grace takes off

precisely where the National Covenant ends. Thus the Puritans are logically ensured of

salvation, even though the National Covenant backfired. Salvation for the Puritans has become

a matter of logical continuance.

Secondly, since the Covenant of Grace logically follows the National Covenant, the

Puritans did not need to prove their claim of the Covenant of Grace. The evidence that the

Puritans provided to prove their rightful adoption of the National Covenant, also could be

employed to prove the Covenant of Grace. The Puritans must have known beforehand that

proof for one covenant induced the insurance, not of one, but of two covenants.

Finally, we must note on a grand display of the so-called American exceptionalism.

After the breach of the National Covenant, the Puritans concentrated upon the Covenant of

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Grace as the pathway to salvation. But the Puritan theologians never lost eyesight of the

National Covenant. The Covenant of Grace ensured salvation only on an inward and therefore

on an individual level. But the Puritans wanted salvation for their entire flock. They began

professing the Halfway Covenant, as they saw in that doctrine the perfect intermediary

between the National Covenant and the Covenant of Grace. The Halfway Covenant allowed

individually obtained grace to be passed on over entire generations through the practise of

baptism. Thus, through the Halfway Covenant, the Puritans were assured of salvation for a

whole nation in spirit. We must note that the Covenant of Grace was a doctrine that was not

only explored in America, but also in Protestant Europe. It is however typical for American

exceptionalism that only the Puritans in New England had managed to nationalize the

Covenant of Grace. Even though the National Covenant was dissolved, the emergent nation

that was built up in New England remained the nation of elect. More than ever, the Puritans

were God’s chosen people.

101

102

PRIMARY LITERATURE

American Puritan literature

Delbanco, Andrew and Heimert, Alan (1985). The Puritans in America. A narrative

Anthology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Miller, Perry and Johnson, Thomas H. (1965). The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings,

Volume I. New York: Harper and Brothers

Miller, Perry and Johnson, Thomas H. (1965). The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings,

Volume II. New York: Harper and Brothers

The Bible

The Authorised King James Version

http://www.genesis.net.au/~bible/kjv/index/

SECONDARY LITERATURE

Andrews, Charles M. (1934). The Colonial Period of American History. The Settlements 1.

New Haven: Yale University Press

Barton, John and Muddiman, John (2001): The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford: Oxford

University Press

Bercovitch, Sacvan (1978). The American Jeremiad. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press

Canup, John (1990). Out of the Wilderness: Emergence of an American Identity in Colonial

New England. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press

103

Gelin, Albert and Van der Paal, Louis (1962). De Hoofdlijnen van het Oude testament (Les

idées maitresses de l’Ancien Testament). Deurne-Antwerpen: Govaerts

Jones, Phyllis M. and Jones, Nicolas R. (1977). Salvation in New England: Selections from

the Sermons of the First Preachers. Austin: University of Texas Press

Miller, Perry (1954). The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press

Praet, Danny (2005). Het Christendom. University of Ghent

Segal, Charles M. and Stineback, David (1977). Puritans, Indians and Manifest Destiny. New

York: Putnam Publishing Group

Tuchman, Barbara (1983). De Bijbel en het Zwaard (Bible and Sword). Amsterdam: Elsevier

Van Melkebeek, Monique (2002). Geschiedenis van de Angelsaksische Landen. University of

Ghent

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